The Indian Premier League 2025 mega auction is scheduled to take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25.
A total of 574 players, 366 Indians and 208 from overseas, are set to go under the hammer at the two-day auction. With each team requiring a maximum of 25 players and a minimum of 18 to make up their squad for the upcoming season, there will be 204 slots, including 70 overseas players, up for grabs.
The highest reserve price for the IPL 2025 auction has been set at INR 2 crore while the lowest base price is INR 30 lakh.
This will be the fifth IPL mega auction and the first one since 2022, a season which saw two new teams - Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants - being introduced into the fold.
IPL 2025 mega auction rules
Each IPL team was allowed to retain up to six players before the 2025 auction, with a maximum of five capped players and two uncapped Indian players.
Teams that didn't use all six retention slots can use Right-to-Match (RTM) cards during the auction. For instance, a team retaining five players would have one RTM card.
An RTM card allows a team to match the highest bid on a former player and retain them.
However, the cap of five capped and two uncapped players still applies. So, a team retaining five capped players can only use their remaining RTM card on an uncapped Indian player.
Rajasthan Royals, having retained the full quota of six players - five capped and one uncapped - for INR 79 crore pre-auction, enter the IPL 2025 auction arena with a balance of INR 41 crore and no RTM cards to play.
Each team is allotted a total purse of 120 crore to build a squad with a maximum strength of 25 players but a minimum of 18. A maximum of eight of these can be overseas recruits.
Consequently, the Royals can sign a maximum of 19 players, including seven overseas players. They had retained the West Indies’ Shimron Hetmyer as one of the capped players pre-auction.
The IPL 2025 auction will start off with 12 marquee players who will be divided into two sets of six each.
The first set of marquee players include Jos Buttler, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh and Mitchell Starc while the second set will have Yuzvendra Chahal, Liam Livingstone, David Miller, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj.
The next set of names to go up will be of capped players divided based on their specialisation: batters, allrounders, wicketkeeper-batters, fast bowlers and spin bowlers. This will be followed by a round of uncapped players divided based on their specialisation.
After player number 116 (subject to timings), the auction will enter its accelerated phase, covering all players from 117 to 574. After that, franchises will be asked to submit names of unsold players from the full list who will go up once more for bidding in another accelerated phase.
As per the rules announced by the IPL governing council, any overseas player willing to take part in the IPL, unless retained, will have to register himself for the auction. In case of non-registration, they will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction as well.
In case any player registers and gets picked at the auction but makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, he will not be allowed to play in the tournament and participate in IPL player auctions for the next two seasons.
The IPL has also decided to revive a rule which allows Indian players who have retired from international cricket at least five years back to go into the auction as uncapped players. The rule was initially introduced in 2008 but scrapped in 2021.
