The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction is now confirmed to take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on November 24-25. This will be the second successive year that the event is being held overseas, with the last one taking place in Dubai.
It will be a two-day affair as all teams will build their squads for the next three-year cycle (2025-27). Interestingly, it will clash with the first test between India and Australia in Perth.
A total of 1,574 players have registered for the auction, and 204 spots will be up for grabs. South Africa (91) and Australia (76) have the highest participation among the registered players.
Ahead of the auction, all 10 teams have announced their final list of retained players. Each team was allowed to retain six players, with a cap of five capped players and a maximum of two uncapped players.
A total of 46 players were retained by the franchises for an amount of INR 558.5 crore, with only Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals utilizing their full quota of six retentions. Meanwhile, Punjab Kings only retained two players, and head into the much-anticipated auction with a purse of INR 110.5 crore.
Heinrich Klaasen (Sunrisers Hyderabad) was the top retention at INR 23 crore, followed by Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) and Nicholas Pooran (Lucknow Super Giants) at INR 21 crore.
Here is the list of retained players by the franchises:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abhishek Porel
Gujarat Titans: Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan
Kolkata Knight Riders: Rinku Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh
Lucknow Super Giants: Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni
Mumbai Indians: Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma
Punjab Kings: Shashank Singh, Prabhsimran Singh
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Sandeep Sharma
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head
Notably, the likes of Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, who were the leaders of their respective sides last year, could not be retained by their franchises. Instead, now they will jump into the auction pool and test their values. In particular, Iyer led the Knight Riders to a title victory in the 2024 edition, but could not find favor from KKR management.
Also, the Royals didn’t choose to retain Jos Buttler, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin. However, they are expected to bid for any one of them on the D-day.
What are the new rules introduced in IPL 2025 auction?
With a maximum of six retentions possible, teams who still have their spots left can use the Right to Match (RTM) card. It will allow franchises to buy back their players by matching his highest bid at the auction. However, a team bidding for the player can increase his bid, and his previous team needs to match that offer to retain the player’s services.
Overseas players need to register their names in the mega auction, despite them being unavailable for the 2025 season. If they don’t register their names, the players will not be eligible for the upcoming mini-auctions.
Moreover, if the overseas player gets picked up at the auction and makes himself unavailable ahead of the tournament, he will get banned from the cash-rich league for two years.
A capped player is set to become uncapped if he hasn’t held a BCCI contract or played international cricket in the last five years.
