All that you need to know about IPL 2018

With the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) just a few months away, the excitement among the fans is already starting to mount as everyone is keen to know how the squads of different teams will shape up with fresh auctions to be held this year. Because of the fresh auctions, many players are likely to represent new teams in IPL 2018 and that has added all the more colour to the tournament. Here is everything that you need to know about the tournament:

Duration:

4th April 2018 to 27th May 2018

Teams Participating:

Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kings XI Punjab, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.

Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals had not featured in the last two editions of the IPL. They were serving the suspension that was imposed on them by the SC because of the wrongdoings of some of their players and officials who were caught being involved in spot-fixing.

However, these two teams are back now after completing the suspension period and will take part in IPL 2018 replacing Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions, the two franchises that had been drafted onto the roaster by the BCCI only for a two-year period after CSK and RR were suspended.

Players’ auction

The fresh players’ auction will be held on 27th and 28th of January and as usual, Bangalore will be the venue where the hammer will go down and the players will be sold to the franchises.

Players’ retention

The franchises can retain 5 players from their squads of the previous year by the following methods-

• Direct retention
• Right to Match (RTM)

What is direct retention?

The franchises will have the option of directly retaining a player who had been a part of their squad in the last season, but they can’t exercise that option to retain more than 3 players. Only 3 or less than 3 players can be directly retained for whom the franchises will lose a certain amount from their budget.

If a franchise retains 3 players, Rs 33 crore (15 Cr. for the first player, 11 Cr. for the second and 7 Cr. for the third) will be deducted from the purse of the franchise. If a franchise retains only 2 players, the deducted amount will be Rs 21 crore (12.5 Cr. for the first player and 8.5 Cr. for the second). In case only 1 player is retained, he will be retained at a price of Rs 12.5 crore and that will be the amount taken away from the franchise’s purse.

Note: If any of the retained players is an uncapped player, the amount deducted for him will be only Rs 3 crore.

What is RTM?

Let’s try and understand it with an example. If KKR doesn’t retain Gautam Gambhir directly, he will go into the auction and suppose Delhi Daredevils make the best bid for him in the auction worth Rs 10 crore. Now if KKR doesn’t want Gambhir to go to Daredevils and want to hold onto their skipper themselves, they can use RTM and have him as the best bid.

So RTM is basically a luxury to the original franchise of a player using which it can hold onto the player after he has been bought in the auction.

The maximum no. of times that a franchise can use RTM in the auction is 3, but they will have three RTM available with them only if they retain two players directly. If they retain three players directly, then they can use 2 RTMs.

Out of all the 5 players that the franchises retain, the number of capped Indian players can’t be more than 3, the number of overseas players can’t be more than 2 and the number of uncapped Indian players can’t be more than 2.

Total budget of the franchises

The total budget of the franchises has been increased from Rs 60 crore to Rs 80 crore and it will further increase in the subsequent years. Like in 2019, it will be Rs 82 crore and in 2020, it will be Rs 85 crore.

Base price of the players

The base prices of the uncapped players has been increased as well. The lowest base price of the uncapped players in the past used to be Rs 10 lakh, but it has now been boosted to Rs 20 lakh. Similarly, the 20 lakh and the 30 lakh categories have been boosted to Rs 30 lakh and Rs 40 lakh respectively.

The lower base price categories of the capped players has also been enhanced and the two lowest categories now will be Rs 50 lakh and Rs 75 lakh instead of Rs 30 lakh and Rs 50 lakh. However the higher base price categories of the capped players are the same as before as they are still Rs 1, 1.5 and 2 crore respectively.

Official broadcaster

Sony Pictures Network had been broadcasting the IPL for the last 10 years, but IPL 2018 will be broadcast by Star Sports Network as they recently bought the broadcasting rights of the tournament for a mind boggling amount of Rs 16347.5 crore for the next five years.