Pre-season
The 2025 season would be the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. In July 2024, the IPL Governing Council announced that a mega auction would be conducted ahead of the 2025 season. [2] In September 2024, it was announced that the bowling coach of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Dwayne Bravo would join Kolkata Knight Riders in a mentorship role. [3]
Player retention
The franchises were allowed to retain a maximum of six players from their squad. Any Indian capped player who wasn't named in the starting XI in international cricket (Test, ODI, T20I) in the preceding five calendar years or did not have a central contract with the Board of Control for Cricket in India was considered as an uncapped player for the auction. [4] [5] [6] [7] The retention cap included a maximum of five capped players (Indian and overseas players) and two uncapped players. [8] The franchises submitted their retention lists before 31 October 2024. [9] [10] Chennai Super Kings (CSK) retained five players including captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, former captains M S Dhoni, and Ravindra Jadeja. The team also retained Shivam Dube and Matheesha Pathirana while releasing the others. [11]
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Auction
The auction was scheduled on 24 and 25 November 2024 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. [13] The auction purse for each franchise was set at ₹120 crore (US$14 million), and the franchises were deducted a specific amount from the auction purse for every retained player. [14] CSK had a purse of ₹55 crore (US$6.3 million) before the auction after mandatory deductions against the retained players. [15] Franchises who did not retain the maximum number of players, were allowed Right-to-Match (RTM) cards at the auction. [16] CSK had one RTM card available to be used against a capped or uncapped player. [15]
A total of 1,574 players registered for the auction, [17] of which 574 players were shortlisted to feature in the auction. [18] CSK bought 20 players in the auction which included ten capped players and six overseas players. The franchise used its RTM card to buy back Rachin Ravindra for ₹4 crore (US$460,000). [19] The Super Kings spent ₹10 crore (US$1.1 million) to buy Afghan spinner Noor Ahmad and ₹9.75 crore (US$1.1 million) on Indian all rounder Ravichandran Ashwin, who had previously played for the team till 2015. [20] The team also bought back Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Sam Curran, and Shaik Rasheed, who had played for the franchise in the earlier seasons. [19] [12]
