With Millions Of Dollars Up For Grabs, The Indian Premier League Auction Is Cricket’s Undisputed Bonanza

The obscenely rich Indian Premier League’s wealth will be best illustrated during the mega auction on February 12 and 13 in a gaudy prelude to the upcoming season starting next month.

Almost 600 players from all over the globe – including seven from those not from the 12 Test playing nations – will chase around $20 million in the first mega auction since 2018.

The two-day bonanza, where especially lesser known players could receive life-changing money, will essentially kick-start the competition with trademark grandeur in an effort to light a fuse on the IPL which has been pandemic hit the last couple of years and mostly played outside of India.

There is particular intrigue over the 15th edition which will comprise 10 teams after the inclusions of the Titans and Lucknow Super Giants franchises, who paid a combined $1.71 billion.

The transient IPL has a different philosophy to other leagues in the world – even rival cricket competitions like Australia’s Big Bash – where loyalty and player connection to teams is deemed less important. In a bid to maintain fresh interest annually – while some argue it helps equalization – teams can essentially blow up their teams bar retaining a few of their star players.

Whether or not it’s the right approach is debatable, but undoubtedly it leads to much-hype before the tournament unlike the Big Bash which has thus far resisted player drafts leading to critics bemoaning its lack of fanfare before seasons.

All 10 IPL teams are required to have at least 18 players in their squad with a maximum of 25. The eight existing teams retained a total of 30 players, with superstar Virat Kohli staying put with Royal Challengers Bangalore to ensure there is some brand identity between clubs and players.

The teams need to spend a minimum of $9 million from their total purse of around $12 million. There are 10 players designated as ‘marquees’, including Australian star batter David Warner and South African quick Kagiso Rabada.

The first 161 players will be up for bidding on February 12 followed the next day by an accelerated bidding process for unsold players. Unlike the last mega auction in 2018, teams do not have the right to match due to some belief that league officials want to afford the two new franchises opportunities to build competitive lists.

Most of the top players destined to get the biggest pay packets are unsurprisingly Indian cricketers given their availability for the duration of the near two-month tournament in what is an ideal breeding ground for international cricket. Although, surprisingly, India has not won a T20 World Cup since the inception of the IPL and embarrassingly bowed out early of last year’s competition.

Such the heft of the IPL, India’s national team does not play during this time period to free up their star players – a standalone window that other competitions like the Big Bash aren’t afforded.

Given players’ understandable desires to cash in on the world’s richest competition, governing bodies are hesitant to schedule bilateral series during the IPL. But given cricket’s congested calendar, it is sometimes unavoidable as underlined this season by Australia touring Pakistan, which creeps into the tournament’s early stages, and England travelling to the Caribbean.

The world’s premier Twenty20 competition stops the cricket-crazy nation – and even a lot of the cricket world – for seven weeks annually since turning the staid sport on its head in 2008.

It has been a goldmine into India’s governing body’s coffers underlined in 2017 when Star India bought the broadcast rights for a dizzying $2.55 billion. But it’s debatable whether the health of the sport has improved as the rich has gotten richer.

Despite its enormous success, the IPL has not been immune to scandals, including infamous corruption sagas, and being engulfed in the continual politicking between rivals India and Pakistan. Since the competition’s first edition, Pakistan players have not been allowed to compete in the IPL in a travesty that appears unlikely to be overturned any time soon.

Those players will have to once again enviously watch their peers from all over the world grow their bank accounts during the two-day mega auction showcasing the all-conquering Indian Premier League’s chutzpah.