IPL auction to begin today, 578 players to go under hammer

The much-awaited Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 11th edition of the tournament will begin on Saturday.

Up to 578 players, out of the 1,122 players, have been kept for the final two-day auction, which includes 244 capped players (62 from India), 332 uncapped players (34 from overseas), and two players from Associate countries.

The players have been divided into different sets and the auction will kick start with the 'marquee' list, where 16 players, in two batches of eight each will go for the bid.

The marquee list includes Gautam Gambhir, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan and Harbhajan Singh from India while from overseas, players such as Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Christopher Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Shakib Hasan - each priced at Rs 2 crore - are on that list.

The auction pool will also include players from the Under-19 India team squad in the form of skipper Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Himanshu Rana, Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Arshdeep Singh and Harvik Desai.

The eight IPL franchise have been allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 80 crore on their squad salaries.

Players who have already been retained by the franchises are- MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja- by the Chennai Super Kings; Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah by the Mumbai Indians; Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan by the Royal Challengers Bangalore; Sunil Narine, Andre Russell by the Kolkata Knight Riders; Rishabh Pant, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer by the Delhi Daredevils; Axar Patel by the Kings XI Punjab; David Warner, Bhuvneshwar Kumar by the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Steven Smith by the Rajasthan Royals.