IPL to return home; 1,214 players pad up for mega auction

Action is hotting up off the pitch for the 15^th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which according to agency reports will be held in India and start in March end. On Saturday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) released the list of players entering the mega auction to be held in mid-February. A total of 1,214 players are padded up for the two-day auction, but this year there are some notable absentees.

Missing in action will be West Indian batter Chris Gayle, Australian pacer Mitchell Starc and English all-rounder, Sam Curran, who have all opted out of participating in the IPL 2022 mega auction.

This year, there are ten franchises in the league with Lucknow and Ahmedabad making their debut, and all will be bidding in the February auction to create a squad of 25 players. Since each franchise has already retained 3-4 players in their teams, 217 spots remain to be filled. Ahead of the auction, the Lucknow and Ahmedabad franchise also named their draft picks for the 2022 season on Saturday.

Rahul to lead Lucknow

RSPG-backed Lucknow has signed up Punjab Kings’ KL Rahul at a whopping ₹17 crore, making him the highest-paid IPL player in history, upping Virat Kohli’s ₹16.5 crore. KL Rahul will also be donning the captaincy hat for Lucknow and will be joined by, Australia all-rounder Marcus Stoinis for ₹9.2 crore and uncapped leg spinner Ravi Bishnoi for ₹4 crore.

CVC-owned Ahmedabad has picked Hardik Pandya and Afghanistan star spinner Rashid Khan for ₹15 crore each while shelling out ₹7 crore for batsman Shubman Gill, their director of cricket Vikram Solanki announced on Star Sports. Pandya will be the team captain for Ahmedabad. 

With each franchise allowed only ₹90 crore for the mega auction, Lucknow will participate in the auction with a ₹59.2 crore purse, while Ahmedabad will enter with ₹53 crore. Sunrisers Hyderabad will start out with the largest purse of ₹68 crore while Delhi Capitals has the lowest purse remaining at ₹47.5 crore.

Overseas participation hit 

Experts however believe that the auction pool shows limited overseas participation of top players. Out of the pool of 1214 players, 896 players are Indian and the remaining 318 players are overseas. Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer are not included in the auction pool, England captain Joe Root has also chosen to opt out of the league. 

 “The USP for IPL is its overseas participation, which will be on an uncertain footing with the covid overhang,” said Sandeep Goyal, Managing Director at Rediffusion. According to Goyal, uncertainties related to the pandemic could make overseas players, especially from countries such as South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia hesitant to participate. “The first critical part of all the teams will have to be to have enough international strength given these uncertainties” said Goyal.