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One of the most eagerly awaited events in the Indian cricket calendar is the bidding process for the ipl 2023 auction players list up for grabs. The build-up to the bidding war is typically when the ever-increasing enthusiasm surrounding the hardest T20 league in the game reaches its height. Most clubs can improve their cricketing situation before participating in the on-field action via the ipl auction 2023 players list.
Bidding for the ipl auction list is a democratic process in which teams with equal budgets across the board bid for the players they want to select, and the player is then acquired by the team with the highest bid.
The process of bidding for the ipl auction 2023 team list will be another meticulous, demanding procedure, but it allows financial management and strategic thinking to emerge as skills in order to assemble the correct kind of squad. A franchise that makes a mistake in this puts itself at risk of missing out on their desired picks from the 2023 ipl auction players list
The Format of the IPL Auction
The IPL auction is now the most anticipated event for cricket lovers, especially those who truly like following the world’s top T20 league. They are glued to their television sets and streaming devices to witness the bidding battle amongst IPL franchises as they compete with one another to sign their favourite players during the auction process. Due to the significance of this procedure, the BCCI and IPL governing council often notify the franchises of the auction date well in advance and select a specific location to ensure a seamless event.
The format of an IPL auction and the procedure to acquire the best players from the players auction list is quite easy to understand. It can be rephrased as the ipl auction remaining players list, for the pool up for bidding at the auction includes cricketers not retained or pre-signed by their respective IPL franchises. These players are released back to form a pool, for which all IPL franchises are allowed to bid their desired sum in line with their available purse, and the highest bid made for that particular cricketer wins the bid and gets its player.
The rules to buy picks from the ipl auction players list are also quite easy to grasp. Teams are allowed to fill a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 25 players in their respective squads, with up to eight overseas slots allowed. Four of these form the basis of the overseas contingent in a playing XI as the IPL focuses more on Indian talent and enabling wings of the home-grown cricketers. There is also an extensive focus on local domestic players since at least two of the non-overseas picks part of a playing XI must be non-international.
To purchase cricketers from the ipl auction list, teams now have an allocated purse of INR 90 crores, which gets reduced depending on the designated amount of players retained. This scenario usually doesn’t arise, but at least 75% of this money must be spent on players. Franchises can spend up to 30-40 per cent of their budget on the top 5 players.
The Marquee Players
The marquee players list, or a ipl 2023 mega auction players list, is a special lot of players that goes up for bidding at the start of a mega auction. This lot features players identified as the ones garnering the most interest as per pre-auction communication from the franchises to the IPL governing council and the BCCI. The marquee players usually come with a base sum which is the highest bracket of salary among the registered cricketers, and enjoy the maximum financial moolah spent on them by all IPL franchises during the bidding process for the ipl auction players list.
The marquee players part of the ipl 2023 list up for grabs are the big-name all-rounders and a couple of specialist batters that are expected to find huge interest and multiple bids against their names from the ipl franchises. This list is headed by overseas all-rounders such as Cameron Green, Sam Curran, Ben Stokes, Jason Holder, who have all kept their base sum at INR 2 crores. Also up for grabs among this lot are specialist batters Rilee Rossouw and Kane Williamson. Nicholas Pooran is another T20 batting maverick to have set his prize at INR 2 crores.
The significance of these cricketers goes beyond their performances on the field. These players usually add to the brand value of the team they ultimately happen to play for, attracting greater interest from the sponsors and television audience towards that team with their presence on the field. The marquee player is usually someone with a huge fan following, which in financial terms means more television and streaming audience tracking his whereabouts on the field, which then means greater interest from the sponsors willing to fill the financial coffers of these franchises.
In cricketing terms, a marquee player is usually someone who bolsters a franchise’s first-choice playing XI significantly. If it’s a batter, it is around him that a particular franchise would arrange their existing batting resources, easing the life of those players by giving this player the toughest job to do. Just as same, if it’s a bowler, the marquee player is the one that happens to be someone the attack is built around. He is responsible for delivering the toughest overs.
But of all the marquee players, the most influential are the all-rounders, who not only allow teams to balance up their playing combinations for the sides and allow the rest of the playing XI to function properly. An all-rounder would usually ease the burden of a bowling attack by filling in important overs in case one of the main bowlers goes for runs and also provide crucial wickets that derail the opposition. If not, this player is able to provide a batting cushion to the rest of the line-up and give them a sense of freedom to attack with the bat, knowing the marquee player is there to resolve the mess if things go wrong.
Over the years, a number of marquee players have emerged as the most expensive picks ever in the history of the IPL. With franchises reserving most of their focus on these cricketers, the marquee player finds great interest in the bidding room, resulting in his base prize skyrocketing to huge sums.
The five most expensive players in IPL history before the ipl 2023 players auction list goes up for grabs are as follows:
1 – Chris Morris (16.25 crores – Rajasthan Royals)
81 Matches – 618 runs – SR 155.27; 95 wickets – avg 24.15 – ER 8
2 – Yuvraj Singh (16 crores – Delhi Capitals)
132 Matches – 2,750 runs – SR 129.71; 36 wickets – avg 29.91 – ER 7.43
3 – Pat Cummins (15.50 crores – Kolkata Knight Riders)
42 Matches – 379 runs – SR 152.21; 45 wickets – avg 30.16 – ER 8.54
4 – Kyle Jamieson (15 crores – Royal Challengers Bangalore)
9 Matches – 65 runs – SR 118.18; 9 wickets – avg 29.88 – ER 9.60
5 – Ben Stokes – (14.5 crores – Rising Pune Supergiant)
Matches 43 – 920 runs – SR 134.50; 28 wickets – avg 34.78 – ER 8.55
The Indian Players
But an IPL team’s fortunes are usually dictated by the performance of their Indian players. Born and brought up in these conditions, these cricketers are the most influential part of a side simply because of their know-how of surfaces used across the country and because these players form more than 70% of a playing XI. If these cricketers don’t perform, a franchise is bound to fail as a whole on the field.
Since IPL 2023 is the second year of the ongoing three-year cycle, teams managed to retain a hefty sum of their Indian contingent from the squad compiled from the auction list for ipl 2022. It means significantly fewer home-grown cricketers are part of the looming auction, but still enough for teams to reserve a healthy portion of their available purses for those.
Mayank Agarwal, part of set 1, is a frontrunning contender to emerge as the most expensive Indian player at this year’s auction. Released by Punjab Kings (PBKS) in controversial circumstances, Agarwal could be a decent captaincy option for whichever franchise he plies his trade and is a unicorn player of sorts with the bat, capable of blasting attacks and also anchoring the game when required.
Also, part of the Indian lot of players are experienced opening batter Ajinkya Rahane, veteran left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat, stalwart seamer Ishant Sharma, and middle-order batters Manish Pandey and Mandeep Singh. All these players bring with them a wealth of experience and also the skill to bolster their team in either department.
Also up for grabs are various uncapped domestic talents that are waiting for their opportunities to flourish at the top-level game. Having been consistent domestic performers for a long time, the IPL provides these cricketers with another wonderful opportunity to press home their cases for national selection. Among those part of the ipl auction players list for 2023 are UP and Bengal seamers Shivam Mavi, Mukesh Sharma, J&K allrounder Vivrant Sharma, the left-arm spinner from Delhi Mayank Dagar and many more.
The Overseas Players
Tasked with the toughest roles, the overseas players ensure ease in the life of Indian players around them. These gents are usually placed for the most strenuous duty on the field, asked to be aggressors with the bat at the top or in the middle and made to bowl inside the powerplay and at the death. And since these cricketers operate in the most critical times of a game, their value is ascertained accordingly by franchises.
These players enter the auction with a base sum that is better than most of the Indian players and fetches the biggest financial interest from the franchises. At the IPL 2023 auction coming ahead, there are multiple big-name overseas cricketers up for grabs. Quite a lot of them are present in the marquee all-rounders set, where the like of Cameron Green, Ben Stokes, Sam Curran, Jason Holder, Shakib Al Hasan are expected to reign supreme among the franchises. Also part of the lot is Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Harry Brook, and Heinrich Klaasen, among others.
A number of these cricketers are those who have previously performed their duties valiantly in the IPL. Stokes, for example, has been a player of deep influence for sides such as Rising Pune Supergiants, Rajasthan Royals, with close to 1,000 runs made and nearly 30 wickets taken with the ball. Curran, too, was an all-rounder of great promise and potential for sides such as Punjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings.
Williamson, at one point, was the linchpin of SRH batting line-up and also their able leader before being released. There are potential dark horses as well, with the likes of Holder, Shakib, Sikandar Raza, Odean Smith potentially finding interest from multiple franchises. Pooran struggled last year but could be a maverick of good interest for at least a couple of teams.
To analyse and understand the impact of these overseas giants on an IPL franchise, one only needs to see how a number of these franchises reserve a heft proportion of their purses for overseas names. These cricketers play the toughest roles for their respective teams, and any error in identifying the right plug for the right hole could be fatal for franchises.
The Remaining Players
The word ‘remaining’ for us shall define simply those released by their respective IPL franchises recently. It involves the players discussed above since they are part of a larger contingent summed up via the table below. In this table, all the players released by a franchise are enlisted next to their names. The idea is to simplify the view of the ‘remaining players’ table and make it easiest to understand for the viewer, who can then look forward to the bidding around their favourite names from the pool set to be auctioned.
| Delhi Capitals | Shardul Thakur, Tim Seifert, Ashwin Hebbar, KS Bharat, Mandeep Singh |
| Rajasthan Royals | Anunay Singh, Corbin Bosch, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Karun Nair, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie van der Dussen, Shubham Garhwal, Tejas Baroka |
| Royal Challengers Bangalore | Jason Behrendorff, Aneeshwar Gautam, Chama Milind, Luvnith Sisodia, Sherfane Rutherford |
| Gujarat Titans | Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Lockie Ferguson, Dominic Drakes, Gurkeerat Singh, Jason Roy, Varun Aaron |
| Kolkata Knight Riders | Pat Cummins, Sam Billings, Aman Khan, Shivam Mavi, Mohammad Nabi, Chamika Karunaratne, Aaron Finch, Alex Hales, Abhijeet Tomar, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Sharma, Baba Indrajith, Pratham Singh, Ramesh Kumar, Rasikh Salam, Sheldon Jackson |
| Lucknow Superb Giants | Andrew Tye, Ankit Rajpoot, Dushmantha Chameera, Evin Lewis, Jason Holder, Manish Pandey, Shahbaz Nadeem |
| Punjab Kings | Mayank Agarwal, Odean Smith, Vaibhav Arora, Benny Howell, Ishan Porel, Ansh Patel, Prerak Mankad, Sandeep Sharma, Writtick Chatterjee |
| Chennai Super Kings | Dwayne Bravo, Robin Uthappa, Adam Milne, Hari Nishaanth, Chris Jordan, Bhagath Varma, KM Asif, Narayan Jagadeesan |
| Sunrisers Hyderabad | Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Jagadeesha Suchith, Priyam Garg, Ravikumar Samarth, Romario Shepherd, Saurabh Dubey, Sean Abbott, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Sushant Mishra, Vishnu Vinod |
| Mumbai Indians | Kieron Pollard, Anmolpreet Singh, Aryan Juyal, Basil Thampi, Daniel Sams, Fabian Allen, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Murugan Ashwin, Rahul Buddhi, Riley Meredith, Sanjay Yadav, Tymal Mills |
Conclusion
To summarise this article and the key points discussed here: the idea was to reiterate the importance of the IPL auction players list and to get the context around why it is most important for a franchise to finalise their respective squads correctly. Along the way, we also discussed the format used for the IPL auction and the number of overseas, Indian and marquee players available for up grabs. We also enlisted the ‘remaining players’, essentially the released set of cricketers ahead of the auction.