The Board of Control for Cricket in India has informed the IPL franchises that there will be 2 sets of marquee players in the upcoming mega auction. There will be 2 marquee lists consisting of 8-9 players in each set. Interestingly, the 2018 and 2014 mega auctions also had 2 elite lists but the previous mega auction in 2022 had just 1 such set.
The players expected to make the Elite grade will be Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, R Ashwin, Mitchell Starc and Jos Buttler among others. Each marquee player has given himself a base price of INR 2 crore for the 2025 IPL auction, scheduled to be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 24 and 25. Ben Stokes would have made the cut too, but he has not registered for this year's auction.
Franchises are expected to go all out in the marque sets early on and it's estimated that 30 to 50 percent of the available auction purse will be spent on those 2 lists.
With INR 110.5 crore in their kitty, Punjab Kings are expected to boss around and are likely to run away with literally whoever they want.
A record-breaking 1,574 cricketers are all set to go under the hammer in the auction, including 1,165 Indians and 409 overseas players. That includes 320 capped, 1224 uncapped and 30 Associate players. A total of 46 players have been retained by the franchises.
The exact order of bidding and marquee list will be released by the BCCI in the next few days. Teams are comprised of a minimum of 18 players and a maximum of 25 in their squad, with no more than eight overseas players.
