IPL Mega Auction To Take Place Ahead Of 2025 Season, Confirms Chairman Arun Dhumal; Drops Update On 2024 Edition’s Schedule

IPL 2024 is all set to begin on March 22 with the first match scheduled to be played between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore but in a major update ahead of the tournament, league chairman Arun Dhumal came out with a huge confirmation.

Dhumal has confirmed that a mega auction will take place ahead of the 2025 edition of the league, saying that all franchises will be allowed to retain up to 3-4 players, the rest they would have to purchase.

“We will have the mega auction for sure, where you get to choose three-four players and then you have a new team. That makes it more interesting and that format will continue,” said Arun Dhumal.

IPL auction takes place usually after every three years where all the teams get a chance to modify their team composition but are allowed to retain the core group with a few players.

Last year, a mini-auction was held for the 2024 season in Dubai where Australia pacer Mitchell Starc became the most-expensive player in the history of the IPL.

Dhumal also remains hopeful for the upcoming mega auction to be as big as it was in the previous term.

The last mega auction in the IPL was held in 2022 where 204 players were sold for Rs 551 crore with two new teams Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants joining the tournament.

“Hopefully, the mega auction will be as big and as good as we have had earlier given newer talents coming in not from India and other countries. Teams like Afghanistan have also benefitted as they could showcase their talent,” he added.

The mega-auction will once again be going to benefit a lot of domestic players as well as international cricketers.

With the mega-auction unfolding after the 2024 season, clarity is also expected regarding MS Dhoni’s future in the league who will once again be leading CSK this year.

Dhumal also confirmed that IPL 2024 would end on either May 25 or 26 keeping in mind the 2024 T20 World Cup, which is set to begin on June 7.

Notably, the fixtures of the first two weeks of IPL 2024 were announced comprising an initial set of 21 games between March 22 and April 7 with the rest of the schedule to be confirmed after the announcement of Lok Sabha election dates.

“This time the challenge is that we are starting with the T20 World Cup in the first week of June, and we were planning to close the tournament by May 25 or May 26 as the team will have to travel to the US and that’s a different territory altogether,” said Dhumal.

“For the first time, the tournament will be held there and it’s a new thing, so the players need to be there early to have some sort of practice games ahead of the tournament,” Dhumal added.

CSK will be heading into the 2024 season as the defending champions, having defeated Gujarat Titans in the final last year to lift their record-equaling fifth title as they gear up to feature in the tournament opener for the ninth time.