Just when we thought it would be curtains for the Indian Premier League, here we have IPL in an all new avatar, with Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals players being put in the fray. Along with a pool of other players, cricketers from these two axed teams will go under the hammer.
In a bid to keep the Indian Premier League alive and kicking, a bidding will happen during the governing council meet in Delhi. There was a big reason for this unannounced, unplanned bidding to happen. The IPL was on the verge of a breakdown, with two prominent teams being chucked out of the window.
Along with these two teams, there were many big ticket players too, who were left in limbo. The BCCI had to come up with a quick fix solution to keep the ball rolling and that’s the reason why a sudden such auction was called was the fact that the Indian Premier League had to continue in some way or the other.
The auction
If sources are to be believed, there will be 50 players going for auctions, some capped and some uncapped. The top 10 players will be auctioned using a drafting system and if unsold, would be put back into the pool.
The Franchises
There will be two new franchises. Interested parties will have to cough up Rs 1 crore to be able to participate in the auction. Now, how do the two winning franchises emerge? By going in for reverse bidding. What is this reverse bidding? Usually, a bidder has to quote the highest amount to bag the bid, but in this case, bidders will have to quote the lowest to emerge winners.
The base price for the reverse bid is set at INR 40 crore and bidders will be allowed to quote an amount lesser than INR 40 crore. In case the lowest amount runs into a negative, the parties will have to pay that negative amount to the BCCI. In other cases, the BCCI will pay a part of the amount to the bidders so that some of their costs are covered.
Now, these two winning bidders are to to furnish a bank guarantee of INR 66 crore.
The Teams
The franchises will be able to hold these teams for a period of two years, after which they will be dissolved. This is because Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings have been banned only for two years, post which they are eligible to participate in the League as a team.
The Venues
Bidders will get to choose from Chennai, Cuttack, Dharamsala, Indore, Kanpur, Nagpur, Pune, Rajkot, Ranchi and Visakhapatnam to call their own venue. They could specify one or more venues from which they will get one.
The Big Names
The Indian Premier League is a high profile tournament and there will be high profile names in this edition of the auctions. A few of them are Chennai-based tycoon AC Muthiah, head of the The Chettinad Group, rival to N Srinivasan’s India Cements; Kolkata-based RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group; Mumbai-based RPG Group; Pune-based Videocon; entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala; Delhi-based Intex Technologies among others.