BCCI, on Tuesday (November 5), confirmed that the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction will take place on November 24 and 25. A staggering 1574 players have registered for the event but England's Test skipper Ben Stokes is not among them as he is willing to focus on the India series at home and Ashes away. However, having skipped the mega auction, Stokes will now not be able to enter the auction ahead of the 2026 season as well. Why? Here's the explanation:
IPL has come up with a new rule that is aimed at player commitment. It states that the foreign players who miss the mega auction will be ineligible to even register for the next year's mini-auction. "Any Overseas Player will have to register for the Big Auction. In case the overseas player doesn’t register, then he will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction," the rule says.
Having said that, Stokes will not get banned. If he had entered the auction and been selected and then if he had opted out of the season, in that case, the all-rounder would've been banned from playing in IPL for two seasons. "Any player who registers in the player auction and after getting picked at the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will get banned from participating in the tournament and player auction for 2 Seasons," the rule states.
Meanwhile, the auction will see some of the top players going under the hammer. The likes of Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Jos Buttler, Yuzvendra Chahal and Shreyas Iyer are among a few players who are looking for new teams after the franchises released them. Even though 1574 players have registered for the auction, the list will be further pruned by the teams and around 600-700 players will be shortlisted for the event.
