IPL auctions set to take place on Jan 27, 28 in Bengaluru

The 2018 IPL auction will be held on January 27 and 28, in Bangalore. That means the mega auction will coincide with the final two days of India's third Test on the tour of South Africa; Virat Kohli's team is scheduled to play the final Test of the South Africa tour from January 24-28 in Johannesburg, reports ESPNcricinfo.

The online sports news portal understands that the IPL has asked all eight franchises to submit their final list of retained players by January 4. The IPL is likely to finalise the pool of players who will be up for auction around January 18.

At the IPL Governing Council (GC) meeting, held on December 6, one of the members had expressed reservations about the auction clashing with the Johannesburg Test. Also some of the franchises were interested in seeing how the domestic players fared in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (India's domestic Twenty20 competition), which ends on January 28, ahead of the auction.

The GC had also approved the retention rules at the same meeting. Franchises have been allowed retain a maximum of five of their existing players through a combination of player retention before the auction and the use of right-to-match cards during the auction.

The IPL also set a salary cap of US$12.4 million approx (INR 80 crore) for every team, and made it clear that franchises will need to spend a minimum 75 per cent of the purse.