IPL Auction. Image used for representation
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Off the Red Sea, Jeddah — the second-largest city of Saudi Arabia — is considered the gateway to the holy city of Mecca. Over the next two days, however, the Benchmark Arena will not only put the nation on the cricketing map, but also end up being the gateway to riches for a plethora of cricketers.

A total of 577 cricketers — legends and lesser-known names — will hope to draw the franchises’ attention during the annual bidding fiesta called the IPL Player Auction.

As the franchise entourages descended on the port city, indications are that it will be the grandest auction — not just metaphorically — of the 18 auctions held in the history of the Indian Premier League.

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Not only because it will have the largest-ever purse — ₹641.50 crore this time around (in the last full auction in 2022, it was ₹561.50 crore) — but also because of the presence of some of the biggest names in the auction list.

The field is usually deprived of marquee Indian names, due to the IPL retention policy. This time around, however, it is different.

Rishabh Pant, K.L. Rahul and Shreyas Iyer — who lifted the IPL trophy as KKR captain last year — will feature in the IPL Auction. Add to the list the likes of Faf du Plessis and Sam Curran, and it will be the first instance of the previous season’s five captains going under the hammer.

With the presence of the Indian trio — along with Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj — it will be interesting to see if Mitchell Starc’s highest auction bid of ₹24.75 crore will be breached this time around.

With two franchises — Punjab Kings (₹110.50 crore) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (₹83 crore) — in possession of massive purses, it’s all but certain that many marquee names will take home huge pay cheques.

RTM’s modified avatar

The two-day auction will be made even more interesting with the return of the Right to Match (RTM) option in a modified avatar.

If a player’s existing franchise exercises the RTM option, the one with the highest bid will be given an option to inflate the bid according to its choice.

While the franchises are planning to use the incremental bid judiciously, it will be interesting to see if an uncapped player, especially, benefits immensely due to the incremental bid.