The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has confirmed that the eight former Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises can retain a maximum of four players while the two new teams – Ahmedabad and Lucknow – will be allowed to acquire three players outside of the auction, which will be held before the 2022 season.
“The 8 existing team will first get the opportunity to retain a maximum of 4 Players and thereafter the 2 new teams will be able to retain a maximum of 3 players before the auction,” the BCCI said in a mail to the franchises on Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Indian board also announced that the salary cap for the 2022 edition will be Rs. 90 crore for all the teams.
“The window for the 8 existing teams to retain the players will be from the 1st November 2021 to 30th November 2021. Thereafter the 2 new teams will have the window to retain the players starting from 1st December 2021 to 25th December 2021,” it added.
The BCCI also clarified that the old eight franchises cannot retain more than three Indians (capped/uncapped) players and also limited the number of overseas players in the retention list to two. The BCCI announced that a franchise cannot have more than two uncapped players.
On the other hand for the two new franchise, two Indians can be picked outside the auction while number of overseas players will only be one. Also, the new teams can select only one uncapped player before the mega auction.
The BCCI has also said that there will no Right to Match (RTM) cards in the upcoming auction.
Moreover, the board has also cleared as to how much funds will be deducted from the salary cap of the franchise as per their choices of retentions. Notably, if a team retains four players, Rs 42 crore will be deducted from the player purse while three retentions will lead to a deduction of Rs 33 crores.
For two retentions, the reduction will be Rs 24 crore while for one player, the reduction will be Rs 14 crore from its purse while each uncapped player retained will cost Rs 4 crore each.
Earlier on October 25, the BCCI had confirmed that the Sanjeev Goenka-owned RPSG group and international investment firm – CVC Capital – have bagged the ownership rights of the two new franchises of the IPL.
While the RPSG Ventures Ltd. had acquired the Lucknow team for Rs 7090 crores, Irelia Company Pte Ltd. (CVC Capital bagged the Ahmedabad franchise for rs 5625 crores.
The new franchises will participate in IPL from 2022 season onwards subject to the bidders completing the post-bid formalities as specified in the ITT document. The IPL 2022 season will comprise ten teams and will have 74 matches, wherein each team will play 7 home and 7 away matches.
Now after acquiring the teams, both the parties will need to pay the entire amount over a period of 10 years.
These new franchises – Ahmedabad and Lucknow – will now be a part of the 15th edition of the lucrative league, taking the total number of teams to 10 from eight.
The next edition of IPL is likley to be staged in the March-April window and a mega auction for it will most probably be held in December this year or January, 2022.