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Monday, 26 March 2012

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

IPL auction set for February 4

The player auction for the 2012 IPL will be held on February 4, the governing council has announced. The players from the Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise, which was terminated earlier this year, will be part of the auction. The venue is yet to be announced.

The council had earlier confirmed that the squad sizes for each team have been increased from 30 to 33, with eleven foreign players per squad, up one from the previous limit of 10. However, the number of foreign players that can be part of the final XI will remain at four. The teams will have an additional salary cap of $2 million.

Should any of the Kochi players fail to attract the bid, their salaries will be covered by the IPL through the franchise's bank guarantee worth Rs 156 crores that has been encashed by the BCCI. Among the leading players that will be part of the auction are Muttiah Muralitharan, Brendon McCullum, Mahela Jayawardene and Ravindra Jadeja.

The governing council also decided that the first window for trading players will be between December 15 and January 20, with a shorter window after the auction. There is no financial cap on trading, though each franchise can add only a maximum of four players to their squad through trading.