JEDDAH: India's dynamic wicketkeeper batter and title-winning captain Shreyas Iyer will headline the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction, set to be held here on November 24 and 25.
What is a mega auction?
In the marquee league, a mega auction takes place after every three to four years, forcing each of the 10 franchises to reshape their squads almost entirely.
Prior to the mega auction, a team can retain a maximum of six players and had to let go off the rest.
This year’s mega auction will be the fifth in the IPL’s history, while the previous four renditions were held in 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022, barring the inaugural version.
Mega auction timings
The mega auction 2025 will kick off at 1 PM local time (3:00 PM PST) on each day, shortly after the conclusion of Day 3 and 4 of the ongoing first Test between India and Australia.
The auction will be held in two sessions on both days. The opening session, which will begin at 3:00 PM (PST) will conclude at 4:30 PM.
After that, there will be a 45-minute lunch break, which will be followed by the second session, scheduled to run from 5:15 PM to 10 PM.
Teams’ auction purse and players’ reserve prices
The auction purse of each of the 10 participating teams are as under.
Punjab Kings - Rs 110.5 crore (maximum)
Rajasthan Royals - Rs 41 crore (minimum)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru - Rs 83 crore
Delhi Capitals - Rs 73 crore
Lucknow Super Giants - Rs 69 crore
Gujarat Titans - Rs 69 crore
Chennai Super Kings - Rs 55 crore
Kolkata Knight Riders - Rs 51 crore
Mumbai Indians - Rs 45 crore
SunRisers Hyderabad - Rs 45 crore
The players can choose of the eight reserve prices, with INR 2 crore the highest.
The remaining seven price brackets are INR 1.5 crore, INR 1.25 crore, INR 1 crore, INR 75 lakhs, INR 50 lakhs, INR 40 lakhs and INR 30 lakhs.
List of 577 players and available slots
A total of 1574 players registered for the mega auction before the list was narrowed down to 577 players, including the last-minute additions of England’s speedster Jofra Archer and USA’s Saurabh Netravalkar.
Out of 577, 367 are Indians and 210 are overseas players.
There are 204 slots available across the 10 teams including 70 designated for the foreign players.
India: 366 players
Australia: 37 players
England: 37 players
South Africa: 31 players
New Zealand: 24 players
West Indies: 22 players
Sri Lanka: 19 players
Afghanistan: 18 players
Bangladesh: 12 players
Zimbabwe: 3 players
Ireland: 2 players
USA: 2 players
Scotland: 1 player
Pant, Iyer to ignite mega auction
Though many top players are available for auction but all eyes would be on wicketkeeper batter Pant and right-handed batter Iyer and KL Rahul are set to intensified the bidding wars in the marquee sets.
List of marquee players and auction order
For this year’s mega auction, the marquee players are divided into two sets of six players.
List 1: Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Jos Buttler, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Mitchell Starc.
List 2: KL Rahul, Yuzvendra Chahal, Liam Livingstone, David Miller, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj.
Following that, the first set of capped players, divided into batters, pacers, wicketkeepers, spinners and all-rounders, would be auctioned off.
Uncapped players from similar categories will then be bid on, followed by another round of capped players.
Once these rounds are completed, the accelerated auction will begin.
What is the accelerated auction?
Although, more than 500 players are up for grabs in the mega auction, not everyone of them will go under the hammer.
The accelerated auction will kick off with the 117th player. The BCCI has informed all of the ten participating teams that the first accelerated phase will include players numbered 117-577.
As per the guideline, franchises must propose a specific number of players from this category by 9:30 PM (PST) on the first evening of the two-day event.
After these players are auctioned, franchises will then be asked to submit names of unsold or unauctioned players for the next round of the accelerated process.
Right-To-Match card returns
The IPL 2025 mega auction also marks the return of the Right-To-Match (RTM) card, which was used in the 2014 and 2018 mega auctions before its omission from the 2022 edition.
For the unversed, the RTM card allows a franchise to reacquire a player from their previous squad by equalling the winning bid.
However, there will be a twist this time in the usage of the RTM card, as the team making the winning bid for a player gets a chance to retaliate by increasing the offer instead of directly withdrawing their bid, like the previous editions.
