IPL 2025: BCCI Begins Finalising Retention Policy, Most Franchises Demand Retaining More Than 4 Players: Report

With the mega IPL players auction scheduled to take place later this year, the BCCI has initiated the process of finalizing the retention policy. Meanwhile, the franchises have requested the Indian cricket board to extend the number of player retentions for the next three seasons.

According to Cricbuzz, the opinions of the 10 franchises have varied on this matter. However, a majority have requested more retentions compared to the last allowance; of 4 players per team. The final call is set to be taken later this month during a meeting with the owners.

The Chief Operating Officer of the IPL, Hemang Amin have reportedly spoken to the CEOs of the franchise to take in their opinion on the player retention policy and the salary caps for the coming three years.

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The mega-auction for the IPL 2025 will serve as a chance for many teams to possibly overhaul their side while the top teams will look to keep their best talent as well.

Just like the BCCI did in 2021, the board will come to a decision and has also considered including the Right-to-Match (RTM) cards where the player who was with a certain franchise has the call to match the highest bid by another side before being sold, this rule was not in effect in 2021.

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It has also been learned that most franchises have requested between five and seven retentions, whereas one of the teams has suggested eight. On the contrary, a few teams have expressed against having a retention policy. Also, there was a request to have only the RTM – Right to match and no retentions at all.

Impact Player Rule

There have also been discussions with the franchises regarding the impact player role. The report suggests that the media rights owners are happy with it while the playing sides and the coaching staff were not big on the rule.

It is expected that the BCCI will persist with the Impact Player rule for the time being.