Unlike the previous season, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 will see a mini-auction which will take place on December 16. Notably, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has set November 15 as the deadline for franchises to send the final list of retained players, and they can retain up to 15 players.
Though the bidding process will be a mini one, but it won’t be short of star players as many known names are expected to enrol for the December 16 event. According to a report in Cricbuzz, some prominent personalities are likely to feature in the mini auction could be England Test skipper Ben Stokes, all-rounder Sam Curran and young Australian cricketer Cameron Green. All three stars are currently playing the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022 down under.
Stokes, who skipped the mega auction earlier this year, seems to be showing interest in being part of the IPL next year despite the Ashes series starting right after the 2023 season of the cash-rich league. The Ashes begins on June 16, and the IPL will likely end in late May or early June.
When it comes to franchises, they are exploring all options for creating a surplus in the salary cap in order to take part in the auction with maximum funds. No wonder it would require them to release some of their costly players.
In the previous edition’s players auction, out of 600 cricketers, a total of 204 players were sold, including 67 foreign players. India’s wicketkeeper-batter, Ishan Kishan, was the most costliest buy at the mega auction and England’s Liam Livingstone was the most expensive overseas player. Further, among the 11 players who crossed the INR 10 crore benchmark, only four were forien cricketers, while the remaining seven were Indian stars, including Deepak Chahar, Shreyas Iyer and Shardul Thakur.
