The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced a total of 578 aspirants for the Indian Premier League (IPL) player auction to be held in Bengaluru on January 27 and 28.
The list includes at least one cricketer from each of the 12 Test-playing nations, including the recently inducted Afghanistan and Ireland. Besides, the list includes a player each from Canada and Nepal.
Neither wicketkeeper Hamza Tariq of Canada nor young Nepal leg-spinner Sandeep Lamicchane had registered for the auction register, which comprised 1122 players.
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However,
It will be interesting to see if either of them is picked for one of the 182 slots that are available for all the teams combined.
The IPL governing council has capped the squad strength to 25 players for the 2018 season. With 18 star cricketers having already been retained by all the teams, it remains to be seen if all the available slots would be filled.
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Marquee players
Meanwhile, the IPL authorities have also announced the sequence of players to be auctioned. The auction will begin with two sets of eight players each, which have been tagged as “marquee players”.
India’s R. Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane have been clubbed along with South Africa captain Faf du Plessis, West Indies duo of Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, Australia speedster Mitchell Starc and England all-rounder Ben Stokes.
All these big players have set a base price of ₹2 crore each.
The second set will include India veterans Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh, West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, all-rounders Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh and Glenn Maxwell of Australia and international captains Joe Root of England and Kane Williamson of New Zealand.
Barring Shakib (₹1 crore), Root and Williamson (₹1.5 crore each) , the base price for the other five stars will be ₹2 crore each.