More than 16 years ago, when BCCI announced the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), most were skeptical. While the general public was still celebrating the recent win in the first ever T20 World Cup, most critics and armchair experts were pessimistic.
How can India host a league? It takes money. We are a poor country. Nobody will watch.
How wrong were they, huh? 17 seasons later, IPL is now counted among the most valuable leagues in the world. It has single handedly globalized the sport of cricket and has turned the BCCI into the most powerful sports body in the world.
IPL has innovated with fan parks, use of technology in decision making, and even
BCCI General Secretary Jay Shah announced the decisions taken in the recently held IPL Governing Council meeting. Now, I just can’t wait for the mega auction due to take place in December (not confirmed).
Based on the decisions taken, it is safe to say that BCCI has the benefits of players and teams in mind. Fans should look forward to a crazy 2025 IPL with drastically different looking teams.
Here is brief on the 7 bold decisions taken by the IPL Governing Council for the IPL auction and season:
- Franchises can retain a total of 6 players from their existing squad. Earlier, BCCI was only planning to allow a total of 5 retentions. After consulting with team owners, this number was increased. This will allow squads to smoothly transition into the next season.
- Franchises have the freedom to choose their combination of Retentions and Right to Match (RTM). A maximum of 5 capped players and maximum 2 uncapped players can be retained. Eg. Chennai Super Kings have the option to retain MS Dhoni as an uncapped player while selecting four more from their roster. Suppose RCB places a bid for Rachin Ravindra, CSK have their RTM option which can be used twice.
- The auction purse for franchises has been set at INR 120 crore. The total salary cap will include the auction pay, incremental performance pay and the newly introduced match fees (more on that later). The salary cap in 2024 was Rs. 110 crores which will be increased to Rs. 146 crores (2025), Rs. 151 crores (2026), and Rs. 157 crores (2027).
- In a historic move for IPL, a match fee has been introduced. Each playing member including the impact player will be paid a match fee of Rs. 7.5 Lakhs per match. This will be in addition to the contracted amount and teams will have to make provisions for the same. Eg. Players like Virat Kohli and Japrit Bumrah who play all 14 league games will now earn an additional Rs. 1.05 crore without including their auction pay.
- Any Overseas Player will have to register for the Big Auction. In case the overseas player doesn’t register, then he will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction.
- Tired of hyping up players before the season, just for them to back out? Not any longer. Any player who registers in the player auction and after getting picked at the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will get banned from participating in the tournament and player auction for 2 Seasons.
- One more season of Thala for a reason! A capped Indian player will become uncapped, if the player has in the last five calendar years preceding the year in which the relevant Season is held, not played in the starting XI in International Cricket (Test match, ODI, Twenty20 International) or does not have a Central Contract with BCCI. This will be applicable for Indian Players only. Dhoni fans can start celebrating.
It has also been decided that the controversial impact player rule continue for the 2025 to 2027 cycle. Just as long as they don’t include it in international cricket.
The 2025 mega auction might end up being just as entertaining as Coldplay in January.
