The IPL governing council met in Bengaluru on Saturday and decided that franchises can retain as many as six players before the auction, an all-time high for the league. Of these, at least one has to be an uncapped player. The most significant update in this regard is that match fees will be given to the players along with contracted amounts while Impact Player rule continues from 2023. The good news is that the overall salary cap has been increased by 20% to ₹120 crores and the player auction may take place towards the end of November.
IPL 2025: Retention Rules
The retention has been configured in such a way that teams will think carefully before they exercise the option to retain players. Deductions will be made from the teams' salary cap upon opting for the first three retained players at ₹18 crores, ₹14 crores and ₹11 crores respectively. For instance, a fourth player will cost them an additional ₹18 crores over their bank. A fifth player will cost them ₹14 crores against their budget. An uncapped player will reduce the purse only by ₹4 crores. If a team wants to retain all six players, the overall salary cap would come down by ₹79 crores even before entering the auction.
SRH Can Now Retain Its Marquee Players
And while the bloated salary cap does give teams ₹120 crore extra with which to cobble together their teams, there will likely be plenty of debate about whether ₹41 crore is sufficient to flesh out the rest of the team in the auction. For the first time, teams will have the right to retain either domestic or international players, move worked on from team feedback, this was followed by suggestion given by Sunrisers Hyderabad. The feature that this allows is for SRH to retain their core overseas players such as Pat Cummins, Travis Head, and Heinrich Klaasen, while Mumbai Indians can stabilize their Indian core.
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MS Dhoni Likely To Be Retained By CSK Now
The saving of ₹4 crore on retaining an uncapped player would work a lot in Chennai Super Kings' favour, as it makes retention of MS Dhoni relatively less demanding for them. Besides, another previously in place rule reinstated by the governing council of IPL is that any capped player who hasn't played international cricket for his country for five years will be reckoned as an uncapped player under the IPL scheme, which would ease Dhoni's retention for CSK and save them their purse by ₹4 crore only.
Jay Shah's Historic Move: Hefty Match Fees For Players Now
A first in the IPL, players will receive a match fee of ₹7.5 lakh each for every game that they play - including that of the Impact Player. "A player, who plays all league games throughout the season, will receive an add-on payment of Rs 1.05 crore over and above the contracted salary, which means the match fee pool for all seasons put together will stand at ₹ 12.60 crore, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced on X. This was done to help cricketers who get lower salaries due to a variety of reasons connected to auctions.". For instance, Rinku Singh has been playing IPL on a salary of ₹55 lakh while his BCCI contract pays him ₹1 crore.
“Any player – Indian or overseas – who features in the playing twelve, will get a match fee of ₹7.5 lakh per match,” a BCCI official said.
Impact Player Rule Continues
The Impact Player rule will continue for the third season running. While it has been argued that it stunted the growth of all-rounders from India, the broadcasters would like it to stay in the game. The average scores have risen by around 10-15 percent in the last two years, and the fours and sixes have increased similarly during matches.
Other New Developments
A lot of new changes can be seen ahead of IPL 2025, and one of the new development that has surfaced is that if any overseas player does not register for the Mega Auction then he cannot participate in the next year's auction as he becomes ineligible to do so.
Another big move by BCCI is that, if any player withdraws after getting picked, there will be big consequences as he'll be banned from Indian Premier League (IPL) for 2 seasons.
The auction is likely to take place in November end and all eyes will be on the teams as to who'll be retained and all the players who'll go in the auction pool.