For the first time in the Indian Premier League, a medium pacer from Italy, Thomas Draca, and retired English pace legend James Anderson are reportedly among the 1,574 players, who have registered for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction to be held on November 24 and 25 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The 24-year-old Draca represented the Brampton Wolves in the Global T20 Canada in August this year, and finished as the joint second-highest wicket-taker of the tournament. He ended up with 11 wickets from six innings, boasting a stellar average of 10.63 and an economy of 6.88.
Draca’s impressive show in Canada, recently earned him a contract with the MI Emirates for the upcoming season of the ILT20 in the UAE.
Meanwhile, Anderson, who retired from international cricket earlier in the summer, has not played a T20 since 2014 and never been part of the IPL, has registered for the auction at a base price of Rs 1.25 crore.
While the BCCI is yet to release the long list of registered players, it is understood that the list containing the marquee Indian players along with the overseas stars, who were not retained by their franchises, will be pruned by the IPL after receiving inputs from the franchises. One major absentee from the list is English captain Ben Stokes, arguably one of the best and sought-after all-rounders in white ball cricket. Joe Root, who was released by the Rajasthan Royals, has also opted out.
Among the Indians, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer – who captained Delhi Capitals, Lucknow SuperGiants and Kolkata Knight Riders, respectively, but were not retained – are listed at a base price of Rs 2 crore, along with Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal, who were both released by Rajasthan Royals.
The other Indian players with the maximum base price of Rs 2 crore are Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan, Ishan Kishan, Mukesh Kumar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Prasidh Krishna, T Natarajan, Devdutt Padikkal, Krunal Pandya, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj and Umesh Yadav.
Star pacer Mohammed Shami, who has been out of action ever since the ODI World Cup final in Ahmedabad last November, because of various injuries, has also listed himself at a base price of Rs 2 crore after not being retained by Gujarat Titans.
Meanwhile, Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan (who was unsold in the previous auction) have registered at a base price of Rs 75 lakh.
Australian quick Mitchell Starc, who became the most expensive player in IPL history when he was bought for Rs 24.50 crore by Kolkata Knight Riders in the mini-auction last year, is back in the auction pool at a base price of Rs 2 crore. David Warner, who has retired from international cricket, has also listed himself for the auction at a similar base price.
The other overseas stars, who listed themselves in the Rs 2 crore bracket are Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Jofra Archer, Adam Zampa, Moeen Ali, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Trent Boult, Matt Henry, Kane Williamson, Kagiso Rabada.
New Zealand all-rounder Rachin Ravindra, who was released by the Chennai Super Kings, set his base price as Rs 1.50 crore.
The auction list comprises 1,574 cricketers. Of the total players, 320 are capped players, 1,224 uncapped players and 30 players from the Associate Nations. 1,165 of the total players are Indians, comprising 48 capped and 965 uncapped, while 409 players are overseas. Each franchise will be able to form a maximum squad of 25 players (including respective retained players), and a total of 204 slots will be up for grabs from the auction.
IPL auction on Nov 24, 25
The BCCI also confirmed that the IPL mega auction will be held on November 24 and 25, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This is for the second time in a row that the auction is being held outside the country, and will effectively clash with the third and fourth days of the opening Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia in Perth.
The auction holds great significance as the 10 franchises have a chance to build their squads for the next three years (2025-27). Each franchise can build up a squad of up to 25 players. This effectively means that 204 slots are available at the auction after 46 players were retained across the 10 teams from last season.
On October 31, the deadline for teams to finalise which of their players they were keeping from their 2024 squads, a total of 46 players were retained across the ten franchises.
Punjab Kings will be heading into the mega event with the highest auction purse of Rs 110.5 crore, having retained only two uncapped players. They are followed by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (Rs 83 crore), Delhi Capitals (Rs 73 crore), Gujarat Titans (Rs 69 crore), Lucknow SuperGiants (Rs 69 crore) Chennai Super Kings (Rs 55 crore), Kolkata Knight Riders (Rs 51 crore), Mumbai Indians (Rs 45 crore), Sunrisers Hyderabad (Rs 45 crore), Rajasthan Royals (Rs 41 crore).