Understanding IPL 7 Auction - Season 2014 - Icon and Marquee players

At Auckland, India has played so badly …. In SA, the team performed poorly and in the previous tours of England and Australia too.. the performance was abysmal…. What you do to lift the spirits…. Conduct IPL – see all players performing….  ~ this time it could be different for there are talks that part could be in South Africa… before that for IPL 7 i.e., IPL Season 2014, you will have auctions – and there could be differential combinations….

For those of us who have been following - IPL Auction is height of madness, but there is method in madness – when you study the rules and it is not only the player under the hammer, but the composition of the Team that the bidder is planning about that determines the relative value.  When Richard Madley conducted the show for the first time, there were many new(s)… year 2012 saw termination of Kochi Tuskers – before that in the first ever auctions, Dhoni fetched the highest price…. Followed by Symonds becoming the million-dollar player…

In the first season, you had what was then called ‘Icon players’ – status given to 5 players who were not put up on auction in 2008 but were assigned to specified teams. The icon players received 15% percent more money than the highest paid player of the team bought in the auction.  In 2010 season, the clause pertaining to icon players was removed on account of complaints by franchises with icon players that having these players was a handicap in the player auction. Initially there were 4 of them : Sachin Tendulkar for Mumbai Indians, Sourav Ganguly for Kolkata Knight Riders, Rahul Dravid for Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Yuvraj Singh for Kings XI Punjab. Later, on the request of Delhi Daredevils, Virender Sehwag's name was added to the list. Deccan Chargers also asked for Icon Player status to be given to VVS Laxman, but he declined the offer in order to allow the franchise to spend more money on other players and still not breach the US$5 million salary cap. 

Away, the marching ants effect is an animation technique often found in selection tools of computer graphics programs. It helps the user to distinguish the selection border from the image background by animating the border. The border is a dotted or dashed line where the dashes seem to walk slowly sideways and up and down. This creates an illusion of ants marching in line as the black and white parts of the line start to move. Some prefer the term marquee selection, as effect resembles the chaser lights of a marquee, and this term can be considered a synonym. The team owners know whether they are ‘ants or white-elephants’… the 2014 Season will see marquee players.  

There will be eight teams this season, one fewer than 2013 after the withdrawal of the Pune Warriors India. There is a possibility for this season to be held outside of India to avoid adding to the existing security demands for the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections should its dates overlap with the tournament dates. The players auction for will take place on 12 February, and if necessary, 13 February 2014. Unlike previous seasons, the auction will be in Indian Rupees rather than United States dollars. The auction will be held in Bangalore.  All teams are allowed to retain a maximum of five players (at most four Indian capped players) and the rest of the players will go into the auction pool. Retention of players would reduce the teams' salary cap by a fixed amount, regardless of the players' actual salaries. Each team has a starting salary cap of  60 crore.

This season's auction will see the introduction of several new rules. First, all player fees will be denominated in Indian rupees but overseas players may choose to be paid in another currency. Second is the "rights to match", which allows teams to purchase a player from their 2013 squad in the auction by matching the highest bid. The number of "rights to match" depends on the amount of players the team retained. Third, the players' salaries will not include their fees for participation in the Champions League Twenty20. On January 27, 2014 BCCI released a list of capped players to all the franchises which will play in IPL 2014 (Season 7). This list has a total of 233 players from from 10 countries.The highest base price is Rs 2 crore and the lowest base is Rs 30 lakhs. On January 29, 2014 list was updated to 244 capped players and 651 uncapped players. This list of 244 capped players has 50 players from India,47 from Australia, followed by 39 from Sri Lanka.32 from South Africa, 30 from West Indies, 18 from New Zealand, 12 fromEngland, 8 from Zimbabwe, 7 from Bangladesh and 1 from Netherlands.

In Australian soccer league, each team can have one "marquee" player whose salary is exempt from the salary cap. For the forthcoming auction, CSK has retained : MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Dwayne Bravo and its auction purse remaining is  Rs 210 million ~ they have 1 right to match (not eligible for a capped India player). Delhi Daredevils has retained none; KXI retained – David Miller and Mahan Vohra; KKR retained Gambhir and Sunil Narine; MI retained : Rohit Sharma, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu; RR retained Shane Watson, James Faulkner, Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny; RCB - Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Sun Risers retained Dhawan and Dale Steyn.  

Virender Sehwag, Kevin Pietersen, Jacques Kallis and Yuvraj Singh are among the 16 marquee players who will be the first set of players to go under the hammer in the IPL auction to be held in Bangalore on February 12 and 13. The marquee players' list, which has been split into two sets of eight names each, also includes Mahela Jayawardene, Mitchell Johnson, M Vijay, David Warner, George Bailey, Faf du Plessis, Michael Hussey, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, Brendon McCullum, Amit Mishra and Darren Sammy. In addition to the marquee groups, players have been split into various categories according to their specialisation: batsman, fast bowler, spinner, allrounder, wicketkeeper. It is likely that the uncapped players will be auctioned on the second day considering the volume of players on the list. With the IPL restricting the squad strength to 27 this year, including a cap of nine overseas players, the franchises have been forced to lay more emphasis on domestic Indian players.

Now do you understand the IPL auction …..which will determine the composition of teams !!!!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

7^th Feb 2014.