The preparations and planning for the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) have begun with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) expected to list out the retention rules soon. Reportedly, franchises are not pleased with mega auctions every three years and there are different opinions among teams when it comes to retentions with a few teams asking for more than five players to be retained.
For the same reason, according to Cricbuzz, BCCI is set to meet franchises on July 31. The venue for the meeting officially has not been finalised but it is expected to take place at the Cricket Centre in BCCI headquarters within the Wankhede Stadium complex in Mumbai. There is still speculation around the number of retentions but the BCCI is expected to settle on five.
While teams are demanding the retention of around eight players, the view around that is the excitement around the auction will diminish. At the same time, it is believed that retaining five or six players could be enough to keep the core of the team the same.
Meanwhile, the Right to Match (RTM) card remains a contentious issue and it is expected to be debated at the meeting at length. For the unversed, BCCI first introduced the RTM card in IPL 2018 which allowed teams to get back their player at a sold price. However, there was no such provision in the 2021 mega-auction. The argument in favour of the RTM card is that the players are sold as per their market values in the auction.
A potential downside to that is, that knowing that a particular team will get back a certain player, several other teams can potentially inflate the prices. It will be tough for the BCCI to bring all the franchises on the same page to decide on retention and RTM rules even as the purse is also likely to be increased from Rs 90 crore to 120 crore.
