The wait for the much-awaited Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction is almost here as the two-day event will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25.
This is the second time that the auction is being conducted outside India, as the 2024 IPL Auction took place in Dubai.
For the IPL Auction 2025, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finalised 366 Indian players and 208 overseas cricketers for the IPL 2025 edition. Several strong contenders, like Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Jos Buttler, and Shreyas Iyer, are likely to spark bidding wars.
The list of uncapped players includes 318 Indians and 12 international cricketers. Across all 10 teams in the auction, franchises are set to fill 204 slots, including 70 reserved for overseas players.
This time, the BCCI has raised the lowest base price for players to ₹30 lakh, up by ₹10 lakh from last year.
According to details, each IPL team can have a maximum of 25 players in their squad and have a maximum of eight overseas players in their lineup.
About right-to-match (RTM) card?
First introduced in 2018, the RTM rule will allow teams to bring back a player from their previous season squad into their lineup. Those teams which didn’t use their full quota of six-player retentions ahead of the auction can only use this option.
A team can exercise the RTM card to match the highest bid placed on a player who was a part of their squad during the previous season, but the other franchise who is involved in the bidding war, will be allowed one more chance to raise the bid for the player.
In case the team with the RTM option decides to match that final bid, it will retain the player in question. The RTM card will be restored for the team that loses out.
Which teams can’t exercise RTM option?
Since they retained their full quota of six players, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals cannot exercise the RTM option. However, all the other franchises do have the option of RTM left with them.
Auction timings:
The IPL mega auction 2025 will start at 3.30 PM IST and will be held until 5 PM IST for the Marquee Sets. After this, there will be a 45-minute break.
The final auction session will be held from 5.45 PM to 10:30 PM IST.
Once again, Mallika Sagar will helm the action for IPL 2025.
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