The world’s biggest cricket auction is all set for this Sunday evening, with 37 Australians throwing their hat in the Indian Premier League ring for 2025 — and this year, it’s going to be mega.
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The Australian cohort make up just over six per cent of the player submissions for the tournament, with a whopping 574 cricketers to feature in the auction being held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Of the 574 registered players, 366 of them are local players — meaning the remaining 208 players will qualify as overseas imports.
Within the 208 overseas players, Ali Khan (USA), Unmukt Chand (USA) and Brandon McMullen (Scotland) are the three players to make the cut from associate nations.
But beyond plenty of registrations for the tournament, why is this year’s auction going to be so big?
WHAT IS A MEGA AUCTION?
In the IPL, a mega auction is held every three to four years, and it forces each franchise to rebuild their previously assembled squads almost entirely.
Each team can retain a maximum of six players from the tournament prior, but outside of that, it’s down to luck and money as to whether or not they select any other former players.
In the IPL’s history, 2025’s season will be the fifth rendition of a mega auction — previously had in 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 (excluding the inaugural season).
WHICH PLAYERS NOMINATED FROM WHERE?
Given this edition of the IPL being a mega auction, a lot more players than usual have nominated for the draft; to be precise, 241 more than last year’s.
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Pat Cummins and Travis Head were the only two Australian players retained by their side’s for the 2025 season, meaning they along with a small few are not counted in the below breakdown of players, given they are not up for bidding.
INDIA: 366 players nominated
AUSTRALIA: 37 players nominated
ENGLAND: 37 players nominated
SOUTH AFRICA: 31 players nominated
NEW ZEALAND: 24 players nominated
WEST INDIES: 22 players nominated
SRI LANKA: 19 players nominated
AFGHANISTAN: 18 players nominated
BANGLADESH: 12 players nominated
ZIMBABWE: 3 players nominated
IRELAND: 2 players nominated
UNITED STATES: 2 players nominated
SCOTLAND: 1 player nominated
Note: Pakistan players are prohibited from playing in the IPL
Of the 44 players in total that have so far been retained in the league, only eight are from outside of India.
Interestingly, only a dozen overseas players that nominated are yet to play for their nation — with Australia’s Ollie Davies and Josh Brown among the 12.
From a monetary perspective, 2 Crore (roughly $364,000 AUD) is the highest reserve price a player can have — a number that just over 14 per cent of the pool will have as their initial price.
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A dozen Australians sit in that top echelon; namely Sean Abbott, Steve Smith, Spencer Johnson, Tim David, Josh Inglis, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell Mitch Marsh, David Warner and Mitchell Starc.
This will be the second auction hosted outside of India, with last year’s event held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
WHEN IS IT?
The 2025 IPL auction will take place on November 24 and 25, kicking off at 8:30pm (AEDT) both nights.
HOW CAN I WATCH?
The auction will be broadcast on Fox Sports, and will also be streamed on Kayo.
HOW DOES THE AUCTION WORK?
All 10 IPL franchises must fill their squads with 18 to 25 cricketers in their squad.
There is plenty of overseas talent for each of the 10 franchises to choose from, however only four of them can play in the starting XI of a team at any one time.
In the auction, marquee players will be presented on the table first in two sets of six players.
Following the selling of the top dozen players, the ‘capped’ players will then be put up for bidding based on their specialty (batter, different types of bowlers, all-rounders etc.).
‘Capped’ players are simply players who have represented their nation and are considered as actively competing at international level, with anyone who doesn’t meet this criteria considered ‘uncapped’.
Interestingly, not all 574 players at auction will be shown at auction, given the sheer number of nominations.
WHAT IS EACH PLAYER’S BASE PRICE?
Players were able to choose one of eight base prices, with the highest being INR 2 crore.
The other seven eligible price brackets are INR 1.5 crore, INR 1.25 crore, INR 1 crore, INR 75 lakhs, INR 50 lakhs, INR 40 lakhs and INR 30 lakhs.
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EXCHANGE RATE EXPLAINED
1 crore = 10 million rupees. 10 million rupees = approx. $182.4k AUD
1 lakh = 100,000 rupees. 100,000 rupees = approx. $1,824 AUD
WHICH AUSTRALIANS ARE UP FOR AUCTION AND WHAT IS THEIR BASE PRICE?
There are 37 Australians who are up for grabs in Sunday’s auction, 14 of which are currently contracted with Cricket Australia and six who are without a state contract.
As previously mentioned, Pat Cummins and Travis Head are the only two Australians to be retained by their franchises amid the mega auction, and therefore will not be up for sale.
Collectively, the 37 base prices of each Australian player equates to just shy of $9 million AUD at $8,890,700.
It goes without saying that while not all 37 players will be selected, the collective amount of money paid to the Australian imports could easily exceed that number.
Below is a state-by-state breakdown of each player registered, as well as their base prices. Note that not all conversions will be the exact number stated, and are a rough (but mostly accurate) guide.
*Denotes a player contracted with Cricket Australia
NEW SOUTH WALES
Sean Abbott* — $364,000 AUD
Ollie Davies — $54,600 AUD
Ben Dwarshuis — $136,500 AUD
Josh Hazlewood* — $364,000 AUD
Chris Green — $182,000 AUD
Josh Philippe — $136,500 AUD
Tanveer Sangha — $136,500 AUD
Steve Smith* — $364,000 AUD
Mitchell Starc* — $364,000 AUD
Adam Zampa* — $364,000 AUD
QUEENSLAND
Xavier Bartlett* — $136,500 AUD
Ben McDermott — $136,500 AUD
Michael Neser — $136,500 AUD
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Alex Carey* — $182,000 AUD
Jake Fraser-McGurk — $364,000 AUD
Spencer Johnson — $364,000 AUD
TASMANIA
Nathan Ellis* — $227,500 AUD
Riley Meredith — $273,000 AUD
VICTORIA
Josh Brown — $54,600 AUD
Glenn Maxwell* — $364,000 AUD
Matthew Short — $136,500 AUD
Will Sutherland — $136,500 AUD
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Ashton Agar — $227,500 AUD
Hilton Cartwright — $136,500 AUD
Cooper Connolly — $136,500 AUD
Aaron Hardie* — $227,500 AUD
Josh Inglis* — $364,000 AUD
Mitchell Marsh* — $364,000 AUD
Lance Morris* — $227,500 AUD
Jhye Richardson* — $273,000 AUD
Ashton Turner — $182,000 AUD
UNCONTRACTED
Jason Behrendorff — $273,000 AUD
Tim David — $364,000 AUD
Daniel Sams — $273,000 AUD
Marcus Stoinis — $364,000 AUD
Andrew Tye — $136,500 AUD
David Warner — $364,000 AUD
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WHO HAVE EACH FRANCHISE RETAINED SO FAR?
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS
Players retained (5): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni
DELHI CAPITALS
Players retained (4): Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs (overseas), Abishek Porel
GUJARAT TITANS
Players retained (5): Rashid Khan (overseas), Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS
Players retained (6): Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine (overseas), Andre Russell (overseas), Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh
LUCKNOW SUPER GIANTS
Players retained (5): Nicholas Pooran (overseas), Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni
MUMBAI INDIANS
Players retained (5): Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma
PUNJAB KINGS
Players retained (2): Shashank Singh, Prabhsimran Sing
RAJASTHAN ROYALS
Players retained (6): Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Sandeep Sharma
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU
Players retained (3): Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD
Players retained (5) Heinrich Klaasen (overseas), Pat Cummins (overseas), Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head (overseas), Nitish Kumar Reddy
WAS ANYONE SURPRISINGLY NOT RETAINED?
Yes, there certainly are a few players not yet retained; much to the surprise of many.
The two big names not automatically taken by their franchise heading into 2025 are Indian stars Rishabh Pant (Delhi Capitals) and KL Rahul (Lucknow Super Giants).
Test wicketkeeper Pant was the Capitals’ top scorer in 2024, with 446 runs to his name — including three fifties at an average of 40.54; a remarkable return given his close kiss with death in recent years amid a horror car accident.
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Rahul was also very stiff; going one better than Pant with 520 runs of his own with four half-centuries.
HOW MUCH MONEY DOES EACH FRANCHISE HAVE TO SPEND?
It might sound like a silly question to ask, given each team has the same salary cap — but given each side has retained a different number of players at different rates, it’s worth knowing.
With Punjab only retaining two players, they have far and away the most amount of money to spend come auction night with well over 100 crore at their disposal.
The maximum amount of money any team can spend is 120 crore, so the Kings have nearly a full payroll to work with.
A breakdown of each side’s salary for Sunday evening reads below, with the 10 teams collectively having $117.1 million to spend (641.5 crore):
Punjab Kings – INR 110.5 crore
Royal Challengers Bengaluru – INR 83 crore
Delhi Capitals – INR 73 crore
Gujarat Titans – INR 69 crore
Lucknow Super Giants – INR 69 crore
Chennai Super Kings – INR 55 crore
Kolkata Knight Riders – INR 51 crore
Mumbai Indians – INR 45 crore
Sunrisers Hyderabad – INR 45 crore
Rajasthan Royals – INR 41 crore
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