New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally revealed the date and venue of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 auction, which is eagerly awaited by cricket fans around the world. The IPL is the most popular and lucrative cricket league in the world, featuring some of the best players and teams from different countries.
The BCCI shared a 10-second video on its official X account, announcing that the IPL 2024 auction will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on December 19, 2023. This will be the first time that the IPL auction will be organized outside India. The BCCI captioned the video, “19 December, Dubai. #IPLAuction #IPL.”
The IPL 2024 auction will be a mini-auction, meaning that it will be completed in one day only. A mini-auction is held when there are no major changes in the teams and only a few players are released or traded. A mega auction, on the other hand, is held when all the players are put back in the pool and the teams are reshuffled.
According to the BCCI, 1166 players have registered for the IPL 2024 auction, including 45 players from associate nations. Out of these, 909 are uncapped players, of which 812 are Indians. There are also 18 capped Indian players in the list, who have played international cricket for India. The list also includes some big names from other countries, such as Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
The IPL 2024 will feature 10 franchises, two more than the previous editions. The two new teams are Ahmedabad Lions and Lucknow Superstars, who won the bidding rights for Rs 5,625 crore and Rs 5,600 crore respectively. The 10 franchises have a total of 77 slots to fill in the auction, out of which 30 can be for overseas players. The total purse available for the franchises is Rs 262.95 crore, which means that each team can spend up to Rs 26.29 crore on buying players.
The BCCI has also released the list of players with the highest base price of Rs 2 crore, which is the maximum amount that a player can set as his starting bid. There are 25 players in this category, including four Indians: Harshal Patel, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, and Kedar Jadhav. The other 21 players are from Australia, England, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Some of the notable names are Mustafizur Rahman, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes, Lockie Ferguson, and Angelo Mathews.
The IPL 2024 auction is expected to be a thrilling event, as the franchises will try to build their squads for the upcoming season. The IPL 2024 is scheduled to start in April 2024 and will be played across six venues in India: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. The final will be held at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, which is the world’s largest cricket stadium with a capacity of 1.32 lakh spectators.
