IPL Governing Council To Meet On Saturday, Set To Finalise Retention Rule

The IPL Governing Council meeting is scheduled to convene on Saturday evening for the BCCI’s 93rd Annual General Meeting, to be held on Sunday. The primary point of interest will be the decision pertaining to the retention rule. It has been learnt that the board, after considering multiple suggestions from team owners, could be settling for five retention and one Right to Match option per team ahead of the IPL 2025 auction.

The board had held a meeting with all the 10 IPL team owners in July to arrive at consensus on retention, as high-profile franchises like Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings have some high-value calls to make ahead of the auction, involving players such as MS Dhoni.

The date for the mega auction, most likely in the second week of November, too could be announced along with its venue.

It could not be immediately confirmed whether the decisions regarding the retention and auction will be made public after the day’s meeting or after tabling it in Sunday’s AGM for detailed discussion.

IPL 2025 will see a mega auction take place before the tournament, meaning most franchises will have the option to retain a handful of players to their roster. The number of retentions and other variable laws of the auction are set to be finalised on Saturday.

Like the 2022 auction in February and the 2023 and 2024 auctions in December, the upcoming IPL mega sale is most likely going to be a two-day affair.

In the last mega auction held in 2022, the IPL teams were permitted to retain up to four players. With the end of the three-year cycle approaching, there are differing opinions among franchises about the optimal number of retained players. While some teams argue for a larger retention cap, possibly up to eight players, others are comfortable with the existing limit of four or five.

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