BCCI planning to have IPL auction in mid-December

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is planning to hold the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 2023 edition in mid-December this year, with December 16 likely to be the date.

The tentative schedule has been discussed among the franchises who have apparently got the indication from the BCCI/IPL authorities during informal conversations recently, according to cricbuzz.com.

Understandably, it will be a mini-auction but the venue has not yet been finalised. Dates for the league are still not known but it is likely to start in the fourth week of March with the home and away format restored.

The salary purse for the auction will be INR 95 crore, 5 crore more from last year, which means each team will have reserves of at least INR 5 crore to start with. The purse can further swell if a franchise releases its players or trades them.

Since IPL 2022, when Chennai Super Kings management had an alleged fallout with Ravindra Jadeja, speculation has been rife that the star all-rounder would either be traded to another team or released. Recent reports even suggested a trade between CSK and Gujarat Titans for Jadeja and Shubman Gill. Both the franchises have denied the trade-off categorically.

There have, however, been requests for trade for Jadeja from a couple of other teams, Delhi Capitals being one of them. But the CSK management has told Cricbuzz that it has no plans to part with the all-rounder, arguably one of the best in the world.

Besides Jadeja, Cricbuzz understands that Gujarat Titans have got requests for trade for Rahul Tewatia and R Sai Kishore but the IPL champions have declined the offers. The transfer/trade window will remain open till one week before the auction and will re-open after it.

Meanwhile, Sourav Ganguly has written to the state associations that the IPL 2023 will be back to the normal home and away model and also spoke of women's IPL. "The next season of men's IPL will also go back to the home and away format with all 10 teams playing their home matches at their designated venues," the BCCI president said in a letter to the state units.

The last three IPLs have been confined to fewer centres - the 2022 edition was in Mumbai and Pune, in 2021, it was in a few centres in India initially and later in the UAE and the 2020 IPL was totally held in UAE.