IPL Auction Updates: IPL 2025 Mega Auction Promises Fireworks as Star Players Go Under the Hammer

LIVE IPL Mega Auction 2025: The Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2025 season is approaching, so get your calculators and paddles out of the closet, relax your purse strap if you own a team, get your team papers ready, and make sure the pen you’re going to use has ink in it. Plotlines, subplots, more plots inside the subplots, and storylines even in locations you thought were drama-free are all present in this auction.

Let’s start with the basics. Over the course of tonight and tomorrow, 574 players will be auctioned. Of these, 193 are players with international caps and 48 are Indian cap holders. There were 1574 participants who had signed up for the auction at first, and around 1000 people were removed from the final roster. There are 208 foreign players and 366 Indian players overall. Unmukt Chand, a name that some or many Indian fans would recognize, is one of just three players from associate nations that made the final roster. Before the sale, the 10 teams kept a total of 46 players.

read more: CSK’s 2025 Auction Lineup: Players’ Base Price, Age, and IPL History Revealed

In effect, this implies that just 204 spots need to be filled. Each team may have a maximum of 25 players, with no more than eight of those players coming from outside the country.

Sets for Marquees

Given that this is a mega-auction, many of the players up for sale are, to put it mildly, well-known brands. For instance, despite being the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and leading them to their maiden championship last year, Shreyas Iyer has not been retained. This implies that the captain of the defending champions is up for grabs. I think it’s a huge problem.

Two Marquee Sets of six each have been formed from these well-known players. In these sets, seven of the twelve players are Indian. Jos Buttler, Iyer, Arshdeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Kagiso Rabada, and Rishabh Pant make up Set 1. Set 2 includes David Miller, Liam Livingstone, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, and KL Rahul. The basic price for each of them is Rs. 2 crore. During the first 1.5 hours of today, these players will be put up for auction.

These big-name players have been divided into two Marquee Sets of six each. Seven of the 12 players in these sets are Indians. Set 1 consists of Jos Buttler, Iyer, Kagiso Rabada, Rishabh Pant, Arshdeep Singh, and Mitchell Starc. KL Rahul, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Liam Livingstone, and David Miller are in Set 2. All of them have their base prices set at Rs. 2 crore. These players will be auctioned in the first one and a half hours today.

read more: IPL 2025 Auction: 5 Uncapped Players Poised for Big-Money Signings

Return of the RTM rule, but with a twist

The Right To Match (RTM) card makes a comeback in this auction, having been seen last in the auction for the 2018 season. For the uninitiated, the card can be used by teams to bring back the players they couldn’t retain. If, for example, RCB successfully bid for a player who used to play for CSK last season, the latter can avail of the RTM card, allowing them to take the player back for the price at which RCB have bought him at the auction. This year, though, there is a tweak which wasn’t there originally. Continuing with our example, RCB can raise their winning bid if they still want the player and in that case, CSK will have to win the ensuing bidding war with them.

Remember, though, that this card is not available to all teams. Sides were allowed to retain a maximum of six players before this auction and those who have done that cannot use the RTM card today and tomorrow. Specifically, KKR and RR cannot use the option as they have already retained their full quota of six players.

Details of the available purses

Each franchise started off with a total purse of ₹120 crore for the auction, a 20 per cent increase from last year. However, teams have already spent parts of this total purse to varying degrees while retaining players. Punjab Kings go into the auction with the highest purse – a whopping ₹110.5 crore, having retained only two uncapped players in Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh. RR have the lowest purse of ₹41 crore. One has to remember that PBKS have the fattest purse by a fair distance and second-placed RCB’s ₹83 crore is closer to par for course this year. Anyhow, here is the full list of franchises and their available purses:

Information about the handbags that are available

A 20% increase over the previous year, each franchise began the auction with a total purse of ₹120 crore. However, teams have previously retained players while spending varied amounts of this total purse. Having only kept two uncapped players, Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh, Punjab Kings enter the auction with the largest prize, a staggering ₹110.5 crore. With a ₹41 crore purse, RR has the smallest. It’s important to keep in mind that PBKS has by far the largest purse, and that RCB’s ₹83 crore, which came in second, is more in line with the current season. In any case, the complete list of franchisees and their available purses is as follows:

Punjab Kings – ₹110.5 crore

Royal Challengers Bengaluru – ₹83 crore

Delhi Capitals – ₹73 crore

Gujarat Titans – ₹69 crore

Lucknow Super Giants – ₹69 crore

Chennai Super Kings – ₹55 crore

Kolkata Knight Riders – ₹51 crore

Mumbai Indians – ₹45 crore

Sunrisers Hyderabad – ₹45 crore

Rajasthan Royals – ₹41 crore

The location and schedule

This year’s auction will be hosted in Jeddah, the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital Riyadh. It will be the first IPL-related event to take place in the nation and just the second outside of India. The Abadi Al Johar Arena is where the actual auction will take place. Since its opening in July of this year, the venue—named after a well-known Saudi singer—has played host to several musical performances. The stadium, which was built in just 79 days, can accommodate 5,000 seats and over 10,000 spectators standing. At 3:30 p.m. IST (12 p.m. local time), the auction begins.

The main attractions

Today, the Marquee Set players are immediately put under the gavel. It implies that any records that are broken will do so before around 5:30 p.m. IST today. KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant are two of the names that stick out among the twelve on that list. It’s odd, though, that these two players have been positioned as the ones to look out for in this auction overall, given that they lack the T20 stats to bat like David Miller or Jos Buttler.

As a result, we could be in for a surprise, and it’s possible that the foreign players indicated above will demand high prices. Yuzvendra Chahal, who continues to produce wickets metronomically but was released by RR and RCB prior to it, must also be considered.