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The player auction for next year’s Indian Premier League will likely take place in the second or third week of December, with 13-15 December reportedly emerging as the likely window for the event. With the last two editions of the IPL Auction taking place in the Middle East – in Dubai in 2023 and in Jeddah last year – it remains to be seen if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will continue the trend of hosting the event overseas, or if it returns home.
A month left for the retention deadline
A report on Cricbuzz, however, mentions that the retention deadline for this year’s auction will be set for 15 November, around a month before the window that the BCCI is reportedly eyeing for the auction. This gives franchises a little over a month to finalise the players that they are going to retain for the 19th season of the IPL next year, and which ones they’ll release into the auction pool.
Last year’s auction in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah was a mega auction, where franchises could retain only a handful of players. While some teams including five-time champions Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings opted to retain five players and leave one Right To Match (RTM) option for the auction, Kolkata Knight Riders went to the extent of retaining six players by the deadline.
Other teams such as Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Punjab Kings opted for a complete overhaul and made just three and two retentions respectively. Interestingly, these two teams ended up competing in the final, where RCB collected a narrow six-run victory to win their maiden IPL title.
This year’s auction, however, will be a mini auction, where players can retain a majority of their players and generally operate with smaller purses compared to mega auctions, with the objective largely being making cosmetic changes and plugging gaps rather than rebuilding a squad from scratch.
CSK, however, might end up making major changes to their squad and releasing the most players among the 10 franchises after finishing at the bottom of the points table for the first time in 18 seasons earlier this year.
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