Up to 87 players can be purchased at the auction (team strength of 25 each), 30 of which are foreign names. The auction is scheduled for December 23 in Kochi.
A total of 991 players (714 Indian and 277 overseas) are part of the first long list that the IPL shared with the 10 franchises on Thursday. The IPL will push this back based on input from the franchises, which have until December 9 to get back to the tournament authorities.
In what is a first, no Indian player is listed in the highest minimum prize bracket of 2 crore. The list of 19 capped Indians is mainly made up of retired national players including Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma and Mayank Agarwal.
Rahane was released by Kolkata Knight Riders after they bought him for 1 crore in the last auction. His base price this time is 50 lakh. Ishant, who was left unsold in 2022, is asking for 75 lakh.
Agarwal was the first player to be retained by Punjab Kings ahead of last year’s mega auction and was also given the captaincy of the team. However, a sub-par season both for the player and the franchise forced Kings to release Agarwal who had been awarded 14 crore last season.
Australia may be the country with the highest percentage of foreign talent, but two of their very best are missing from the list. Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne are not among the 991 names that applied to participate in the auction. Neither player had customers last year. Nor are they known for their T20 exploits. And they’ll likely be heavily involved in preparing Ashes with the series set to begin on June 16. Australian Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins had previously withdrawn due to workload issues.
The 2 crore band: Nathan Coulter-Nile, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Chris Lynn, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Jamie Overton, Craig Overton, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Ben Stokes, Adam Milne, Jimmy Neesham, Kane Williamson , Rilee Rossouw, Rassie van der Dussen, Angelo Mathews, Nicholas Pooran, Jason Holder
The 1.5 crore band: Sean Abott, Riley Meredith, Jhye Richardson, Adam Zampa, Shakib Al Hasan, Harry Brook, Will Jacks, Dawid Malan, Jason Roy, Sherfane Rutherford
The 1 crore band: Mayank Agarwal, Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Moises Henriques, Andrew Tye, Joe Root, Luke Wood, Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Martin Guptill, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Heinrich Klaasen, Tabraiz Shamsi, Kusal Perera, Roston Chase, Rakheem Cornwall, Shai Hope, Akeal Hossein, David Wiese