IPL 2025 Auction: Players list analysis, expected highest bidders and more

The mega auction for the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) is just around the corner, with the event set to take place in Jeddah on 24 and 25 November. It will be the fifth mega auction in the history of the world’s biggest T20 league and takes place three years since the previous one, which had taken place before the debut of Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants.

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The IPL Governing Council had set 31 October as the deadline for the 10 franchises to announce their retention picks ahead of the mega auction. The league would then unveil the final list of players set to go under the hammer on Friday, a little over a week before the two-day mega auction is set to commece in Saudi Arabia.

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Before the mega auction gets underway, we take a look at an overview of the players set to go under the hammer along with players who are expected to fetch the highest bids in the auction:

Key numbers from the IPL 2025 mega auction player list announcement

Players likely to attract top bids and expected biggers

The IPL GC unveiled a a list of 12 ‘Marquee’ players who are further divided into two groups, comprising some of the top names in Indian cricket as well as overseas stars. The 12 ‘Marquee’ players will be the first to go under the hammer on Sunday, Day 1 of the mega auction and are also expected to draw some of the highest bids in the two-day event.

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Following are the players included in the ‘Marquee’ list:

List 1: Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Arshdeep Singh, Jos Buttler, Mitchell Starc, Kagiso Rabada

List 2: Yuzvendra Chahal, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Liam Livingstone, David Miller.

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We take a look at five players likely to attract the top bids in the auction as well as the franchises are likely to bid for them:

Rishabh Pant

Pant could end up smashing records in the upcoming auction after being released by the Delhi Capitals, whom he had led since 2021 with the exception of the 2023 edition. Being one of the top names in Indian cricket, someone who makes it to the first XI in all three formats, Pant was widely expected to get retained along with the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and others. However, Pant reportedly was looking for a change and thus finds himself in the auction.

The wicketkeeper-batter would be a dream fit as a captain at the Punjab Kings, where he would reunite ex-DC coach Ricky Ponting. There also are reports of Chennai Super Kings intending to bring him on board in the 18th edition of the league.

Shreyas Iyer

There aren’t too many captains out there who get released by a team right after helping them win the title. And yet that is precisely what happened to Shreyas Iyer, who had joined Kolkata Knight Riders in 2022 and led them to their third title in May this year, while also scoring 351 runs at a strike rate touching 150 (146.86).

It’s fair to say Iyer will have plenty of franchises looking to secure him for the next season as their captain, and DC reportedly are looking to bring him back on board. It was under Iyer’s captaincy after all that the Capitals made their only appearance in an IPL final in 2020.

KL Rahul

KL Rahul has the experienced of leading two franchises in the IPL as well as the Indian team in red as well as white-ball formats, albeit intermittently and should have little problem joining a new franchise as a captain next season.

What further adds to his value is the fact that while his strike rate remains a bit of a worry, he remains consistent as ever when it comes to scoring truckloads of runs season after season.

Arshdeep Singh

Few Indian cricketers have exhibited as much growth as Arshdeep has in the last two years. The left-arm quick had been drafted into the Indian team after a stellar run in the 2022 season and has since cemented his place in the T20I bowling unit, playing an important role in the Men in Blue’s T20 World Cup triumph in June.

More recently, Arshdeep showed his ability to shine in the powerplay as well as in the death overs and also bounce back from a poor outing during the recently-concluded T20I series in South Africa, starring in the victories in Centurion and Johannesburg as the Suryakumar Yadav-led Indian side completed a 3-1 series win .

Jos Buttler

Not only is he an explosive batter who also happens to be a top-rated wicket-keeper, Buttler’s skills as a leader which led to him bagging the England white-ball captaincy job and leading the team to the T20 World Cup triumph in 2022 make him a standout candidate among the overseas stars in the upcoming mega auction.

The 34-year-old recently returned to action for the first time in months in the T20I series in the West Indies, where he dispelled doubts over his current form after months of inaction with a fiery 83 off just 45 balls in Bridgetown.