A total of 164 Indian players, 125 overseas players and 3 players from Associate Nations will be up for grabs in the upcoming IPL 2021 Player Auction in Chennai, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed on Thursday. Overall, a total of 292 cricketers are set to go under the hammer in Chennai on February 18. Last week, 1,114 cricketers had registered for the auction, however, the final list was pruned after the eight franchises submitted their shortlist of players.
INR 2 crore is the highest reserve price and two Indian players – Harbhajan Singh and Kedar Jadhav – and eight overseas players – Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Shakib Al Hasan, Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Liam Plunkett, Jason Roy & Mark Wood have chosen to be slotted in the highest bracket.
12 players are in the auction list with a base price of INR 1.5 crore. Hanuma Vihari and Umesh Yadav are the two Indian players in the list of 11 cricketers with a base price of INR 1 crore.
With nine vacant slots, Kings XI Punjab go in with the highest available purse of INR 53.2 Crores. Royal Challengers Bangalore, on the other hand, have a maximum 13 vacant positions and a purse of INR 35.9 Cr to fill those.
The Auction will start at 15:00 IST – February 18.
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List of Capped Players as per their base price
| Base Price (INR) | Total | Indians | Overseas |
| 2 Crore | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| 1.5 Crore | 12 | – | 12 |
| 1 Crore | 11 | 2 | 9 |
| 75 Lacs | 15 | – | 15 |
| 50 Lacs | 65 | 13 | 52 |
| VIVO IPL 2021/ Squad Size/Salary Cap/Available Slots | ||||||
| Franchise | No of Players | No of Overseas Players | Total money spent (Rs.) | Salary cap available (Rs.) | Available Slots | Overseas Slots |
| CSK | 18 | 7 | 62.1 | 22.9 | 7 | 1 |
| DC | 19 | 6 | 72.09 | 12.9 | 6 | 2 |
| KXIP | 16 | 3 | 31.8 | 53.2 | 9 | 5 |
| KKR | 17 | 6 | 74.25 | 10.75 | 8 | 2 |
| MI | 18 | 4 | 69.65 | 15.35 | 7 | 4 |
| RR | 17 | 5 | 50.15 | 34.85 | 8 | 3 |
| RCB | 12 | 4 | 49.1 | 35.9 | 13 | 4 |
| SRH | 22 | 7 | 74.25 | 10.75 | 3 | 1 |
| Total | 139 | 42 | 483.39 | 196.6 | 61 | 22 |
Last month, the franchises announced the list of retained and released players. However, the trading window closed on February 4 at 5 PM and it led to the BCCI releasing the final players list after the franchises provided them with the required cricketers list.
Among the renowned names, the likes of Joe Root, Mitchell Starc and James Pattinson have already decided to skip the auction. A total of 61 slots are set to be filled out of which 22 are for overseas players and it will be interesting to see who manages to bag the elusive IPL contract.