The Indian Premier League Governing Council met in New Delhi on Wednesday alongwith the Committee of Administrators (CoA) to decide the player retention policy, salary cap, player regulations and other related issues, especially for the uncapped players, with ten seasons up for the cash-rich league. The meeting became even more important following the return of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) from suspension and exit of Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions. According to the new player retention policy, a franchise can retain upto five players using a combination of Player Retention (Pre-Player Auction) and Right to Match (RTM).
The Governing Council decided that the retention will work as:
A maximum of either three retentions or three RTM at the discretion of the franchises If there is no retention before player auction then franchises can have up to 3 RTM
The retention policy also explained the number of players who can be retained depending on their capped or uncapped status. The decision taken was that a team can retain a maximum of three capped Indian players, maximum number of two overseas players and/or maximum number of two uncapped Indian players.
"IPL governing council decided all teams can avail facility of retaining five players & Right to Match. Out of five, three can be retained & two can be taken under Right to Match or vice-versa. Increased salary cap of players & base price of uncapped players," said the IPL commissioner Rajeev Shukla. He further said MS Dhoni's inclusion in CSK is subject to the player and the franchise itself.
Meanwhile, salary caps were also set for players starting from Rs 80 crore, in 2018, to Rs 82 crore and then Rs 85 crore in subsequent years. The minimum spend will be 75 per cent of the salary cap for each season to aid junior players.
For the auctions, the base price of players have been increased in both capped and uncapped categories. The earlier base price of Rs 10 lakh for uncapped players has been heightened to Rs 20 lakh, Rs 20 lakh has been changed to Rs 30 lakh and Rs 30 lakh to Rs 40 lakh. For capped players, the earlier base price of Rs 30 lakh has been increased to Rs 50 lakh, Rs 50 lakh to Rs 75 lakh, while there are no changes for players carrying the reserve price of Rs 1 crore, Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 2 crore.
In terms of squad size, the previous squad limit of 27 has been reduced to a maximum of 25 players, up to eight overseas, and a minimum of 18 players.
