Regarding the date and location, the BCCI has not yet released a formal announcement.
The list of players retained by each of the ten Indian Premier League (IPL) teams is about to be finalised. According to reports, the player retention list must be submitted by October 31st in order to be considered for the IPL 2025 mega auction. The final week of November is when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly planning to hold the IPL mega auction. Regarding the date and location, the BCCI has not yet released a formal announcement.
However, there are now two conflicting reports about the auction’s date and location.
While Times of India (TOI) reported that the auction will take place on November 30. According to the report, “there is a possibility of the Indian cricket board hosting it in Dubai” once more. The IPL 2024 auction was held in Dubai last year.
On the contrary, Sportstar have reported that the auction will be held in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), and it will be a two-day affair (November 24 and 25).
Initially, London and Singapore were considered as venues to host the auction. But thanks to a favourable time zone, Riyadh is currently in the lead.
According to Sportstar, “the Board and the IPL officials are in the ‘final stages’ of finalising the venue that can accommodate the entire entourage—including all ten franchise delegations and a sizable crew from Jio and Disney Star—over three days.”
“The Board believes that the IPL, being the most popular cricket league in the world, is important to tap into new markets and allow it to grow in terms of creating a newer fan base,” he continued, adding that Saudi Arabia is “expensive” in comparison to Dubai.
The IPL governing council announced the player retention rules last month. The IPL governing council decided on Saturday that the 10 IPL teams could keep up to six players from their previous teams, including using the Right To Match (RTM) card at the auction, which will cost Rs 75 crore out of an enhanced team purse of Rs 120 crore.
The BCCI made a big decision when it decided that all Indian players who have not participated in an international match for at least five years would be considered “uncapped players.”
Using the RTM option or retention, the IPL teams can now keep six players from their current roster.
The franchise has the freedom to select its own combination for RTMs and Retentions. A maximum of two uncapped players and five capped players (Indian and overseas) may be present in each of the six retention/RTMs.