IPL franchises request 5-7 retentions ahead of mega auctions, BCCI to announce diktat soon: Report

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has reportedly initiated the process of finalising the retention policy ahead of the mega auctions for IPL 2025. 

As reported by Cricbuzz, most franchises have requested an increase in the number of retentions. Those franchises have asked for the retention number to go up from four to something between five and seven. 

It added that one team even asked for a retention of up to eight players. But not all franchises were on the same page as some of them have asked for no retentions at all. Also, there was a request to have no retentions and only Right To Match (RTM) cards, which remained absent in 2021, the last time mega auctions were held for the Indian cash-rich league. 

The BCCI's Acting CEO and IPL in-charge Hemang Amin recently asked for the views of the franchises' CEOs on the salary cap and policy for the upcoming three years. They were also asked about the views of having the RTM cards.

The Indian Board has stated that it will announce a decision at a meeting between the owners, which shall take place later this month. 

The franchises CEOs were also



asked about the player purse. Currently, the team purse stands at Rs 100 Crore. The prevailing view is to keep the salary cap between Rs 110-120 crore but it could see an increase of 20 crore.

The report also added that the Impact player rule was also part of the discussions. The media rights holders are satisfied with it but the coaching staff is not much impressed with the rule. The rule was first implemented in IPL 2023 and carried in IPL 2024 too. 

But it came under scrutiny by players, including Rohit Sharma, who termed that the rule is 'taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertainment for the people around'.

"I generally feel that it is going to hold back [development of allrounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players," Rohit said on the Club Prairie Podcast. "I'm not a big fan of impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertainment for the people around. But if you look [at] genuinely just cricketing aspect of it…. I can give you so many examples - guys like Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube are not getting to bowl, which for us [India team] is not a good thing," he added.