'Marquee' players to get auction rolling

The IPL auction, though scheduled to be held over two days, will see the biggest names - the 27 "marquee" players - going under the hammer first, a process that could end within an hour. These players, picked according to a combination of their valuation and star power, will be put up for auction.

The players are: Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Tillkaratne Dilshan, Gautam Gambhir, Mahela Jayawardene, Zaheer Khan, Yusuf Pathan, Kevin Pietersen, Yuvraj Singh, Ross Taylor, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara, Rohit Sharma, Graeme Smith, Andrew Symonds, Cameron White, Johan Botha, Chris Gayle, VVS Laxman, Brendon McCullum, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Robin Uthappa and Daniel Vettori.

That makes great television viewing but the random order in which the players will be presented for auction will leave the franchises scrambling for a workable plan. In the absence of a known sequence of players, franchises will have to work out an alternative approach to make the best buy. Say, for example, Franchise A wants players X, Y and Z, but those players come in last in the auction list; by the time they come up for auction the franchise runs the risk of losing out on other good players who may be going cheap. "Most of the strategies that teams have worked out might not work and they will need to take a quick decision on a buy," one franchise official explained.

The players on the auction list - around 350 at last count, grouped into several price bands from $20,000-400,000 - range from the biggest current stars, the best young talent and a few big names from the past, and represent 11 countries. However, no more than about 130 players are expected to be bought, with each team picking around 13 and then beefing up the squad by signing uncapped Indian players who can be bought relatively cheap.

Each player will be individually presented at the open auction - handled by veteran auctioneer Richard Madley, the Englishman who normally deals in antiques and occasionally keeps wicket - where the highest bidder will be the buyer at that price. Bidding will start at the player's reserve price and, unlike last year, there is no limit to what can be bid for a single player. Franchises will not be able to make a bid for a player that would take them beyond their balance remaining on the salary cap. The players will be arranged into "sets"; initial sets will comprise the marquee players, and then players with the same core skills (batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders, wicket-keepers).

The order of these subsequent sets, and the order that players will be presented for auction within each set, will be determined by random draw. The bidding increments will be $5,000 for bids up to $100,000; $10,000 for bids from $10 0,000 to $300,000; and at the auctioneer's discretion for larger bids. Players for whom no bids are received when they are initially presented for auction may be re-presented for auction once all of the initial sets have been concluded. The auction is over when each franchise has either (a) no balance left on its salary cap or (b) no further available slots for overseas players or (c) filled its maximum squad of 30 players or (d) indicates that it will not be bidding for any further players.