Rahul Tiwari
khelja|15-11-2024
The day for which IPL fans are eagerly waiting is not far away. The auction of players for the next season of IPL is going to be held on Sunday 24th and Monday 25th November. This time's auction is special in many ways because it is a big auction i.e. mega auction, in which more than 200 players will be bought and bids worth hundreds of crores of rupees will be made. The auction is going to be held abroad for the second time in a row. Apart from all this, now the Board of Control for Cricket in India has taken another big decision and has once again handed over the responsibility of conducting the auction to the same person who had done this work last time. Yes, once again renowned auctioneer Mallika Sagar has been given the responsibility of IPL auction by BCCI.
A mega auction for the IPL 2025 season will be organized in Jeddah city of Saudi Arabia at the end of next week. This is the first time that the auction of players in IPL will be held in Saudi Arabia. For the second consecutive time, the auction is being organized outside India. Only last year the auction was held in Dubai, UAE. Although, then it was only a mini auction, but this time a mega auction is being organized, which will be held in Jeddah for two whole days.
For the first time in the last auction, Mallika Sagar got the responsibility of conducting it and now BCCI has once again selected her for the mega auction. 48 year old Mallika is the first female auctioneer who has got the opportunity to conduct auction in the history of this league. Last year he had created history by doing this and now after the success of that auction, the board has again selected him. She has also previously conducted the auction of the Women's Premier League. Before the cricket auction, he had shown his ability in the Pro Kabaddi League. Before him, Richard Madley, Hugh Edmeades and Charu Sharma had completed the auction.
This will be the 18th auction in IPL history and this time it is more special. After a long time, many big names of Indian cricket will be seen directly in the mega auction instead of being retained. Captain Shreyas Iyer, who won the title for the current champion Kolkata Knight Riders, was not retained by his franchise, while veterans like KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant have also left their franchises and entered the mega auction. This time, more than 1500 players have registered for the auction but the luck of only 204 players can shine. This time the auction purse of each franchise has also been increased to Rs 120 crore, out of which a large part has been spent in retention.