Courtesy: BCCI/ IPL/X
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly going to allow the IPL teams to retain five players without the Right to Match (RTM) card option being available to them in the upcoming auction for the 2025 season. Notably, in a recent meeting at the BCCI headquarters, the IPL officials discussed the highly contested player retainership topic with all the 10 IPL franchise owners, and the majority of them wanted to keep 5-6 players for the upcoming edition of the tournament, to have continuity from the previous seasons.
It was further stated that the request of retaining five players before the IPL 2025 auction from the franchise owners was also in regards to protecting their brand value, which BCCI adhered to, as per the report from the Indian Express. With five players set to be retained by the IPL teams for the next season, Mumbai Indians could end up being a big beneficiary, since they had lost out on few of their star players in the last couple of mega auctions due to limited player retention options.
BCCI is yet officially decide about player retention for the IPL 2025 season
As of this writing, the BCCI is yet to officially communicate their final decision to the media about player retention for the IPL 2025 season, but regardless, the upcoming mega auction could turn out to be a make-or-break for few of the teams. Moreover, in the same meeting with the BCCI, the IPL franchise owners wanted the mega auction to be held in a four or five-year cycle, instead of three years on average in recent times.
Some of the IPL franchise teams who weren’t in favour of the mega auction in the IPL for the 2025 season, included teams like defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, and Gujarat Titans. All the owners of these six franchises wanted the IPL mega auction to be postponed ahead of the 2025 season of the tournament.
