The IPL players draft to allow two new franchises based in Pune and Rajkot to pick 10 players of their choice will be held at the Mumbai Cricket Association’s clubhouse in the Bandra-Kurla Complex on December 15.
The draft pick is to be held at 12:15 pm, according to a BCCI source.
Sanjeev Goenka’s New Rising won the bid for the Pune franchisee while Intex won for Rajkot after a reverse bidding process was held in Delhi on December 8.
Goenka’s company will shell out Rs. 16 crore while Intex will pay Rs 10 crore to the BCCI.
Pune will be given the choice to pick the players first because they were the lowest bidders (negative bids) to buy the new team for two years.
The bidding process for the two new franchises was necessitated by the suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals for the involvement of some of their officials and co-owners in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, which was probed by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice (retd) R. M. Lodha committee.
However, both CSK and RR will be allowed back into the league after serving out their suspension.
The cricketers from the two suspended franchises will be divided into two groups of capped and uncapped players, and the top names will be sold through the draft system. The two new teams will have a minimum budget of Rs 40 crore and a maximum of Rs 66 crore to buy the players.
Among the players expected to feature in the draft, it will be interesting to see whether India’s limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni still commands the sort of attraction that he had when CSK grabbed him with a million-dollar bid in the inaugural auction held eight years ago.
Dhoni, who led CSK for eight seasons, is expected to be in the first list of the draft.
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