Stokes misses out, Anderson tries his luck as IPL mega-auction gears up for a two-day action in Jeddah

1574 players, out of which 1165 are Indian while the rest are foreign, have registered themselves for the mega-auction this year including some big names who were not retained earlier. This long list will be cut short before the auction on November 24 and November 25 in Jeddah. This year’s list includes players from all full-member nations, barring Pakistan, as well as Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Scotland, USA and UAE. Since it’s a mega-auction this year, all ten franchises are allowed to build a squad of a maximum of 25 players for the next three years. Having retained 46 players altogether during the rentention window, only 204 slots remain for all of the registered players now. The way it works is that players register themselves against a base price ranging from INR 30 Lakhs to INR 2 crore, and the franchises bid by pitching in the highest prices they can offer for that player. If the players were released earlier, their original franchise can win them back using Right-to-Match option but not before the highest-bidder is given another opportunity to pitch in a higher price. 

Big guns who were not retained earlier including Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammad Shami, and Mitchell Starc have all registered for the base price of INR 2 crore. Following is the list of players who pooled themselves in for a minimum price of INR 2 crore.

England’s red-ball captain and the fifth-most expensive buy in the history of IPL, Ben Stokes, has surprisingly not registered himself for the lucrative league. Reportedly, the English all-rounder has decided against going in the auction to manage his workload following his recent bout of injuries. Whats more surprising is that English pacer, James Anderson, who has never played an IPL game and last played a T20 game more than a decade ago, is among the names on the list. The right-arm pacer has registered for INR 1.25 crore, the second-highest base price this year. 

Italian player Thomas Draca, who played from Brampton in the Global T20 Canada and was recently picked by MI Emirates for the third edition of ILT20, is the first from his country to do so. Given that he already is a part of Mumbai Indians extensive franchise network, fans might see him going to them in the IPL as well. 

The two-day mega-auction will kick off at the Abady Al Johar Arena on November 24. Earlier, the purse for building the teams was increased to INR 120 crore, which the teams had to use before as well as during the auction. Of all ten teams, Punjab Kings have the highest purse value at INR 110.5 crore, as they only retained two players from last year while Rajasthan Royals have the lowest purse with only INR 41 crore in it. 

Another way for teams to rope players in the teams is the option to use Right-to-Match (RTM) on players who were a part of them in the yester season. All teams have at least one RTM option still available, except Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders, both of who exhausted their retention limit by holding all six players pre-auction.