On November 24 and 25, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction will occur in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The massive two-day event was originally scheduled in Riyadh, but the location has been abruptly changed. The third and fourth days of India vs. Australia's Perth Test match will coincide with the next IPL mega auction. An IPL super auction will be place on a Sunday and Monday for the first time, incidentally. For the second year in a row, the IPL auction is being held abroad. For the mega auction, 1,574 players have registered, 1,165 of them are Indian and 409 of whom are foreign. According to an official IPL release, the list consists of 30 players from Associate Nations, 1,224 uncapped players, and 320 capped players.
The Abady Al Johar Arena will host the IPL super auction, and the Hotel Shangri-La will host all franchise owners and authorities. The Hotel Shangri-La is close to the auction site, and careful preparation has been done to ensure that the auction is a huge success.
There are 272 capped international players and 48 capped Indian players registered for the auction. Given that 91 participants from the region have signed up for the mega auction, the majority of the auction's entries come from South Africa. During the auction, which will take place in Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25, 76 players from Australia, 52 from England, 39 from New Zealand, 29 from Sri Lanka, 29 from Afghanistan, and 33 from the West Indies are up for grabs.
All 10 franchises made their individual player retention announcements on October 31. With a combined investment of ₹558.5 crore, all ten teams kept 46 players. Franchises were permitted to keep up to six players (Retention/Right to Match), with a maximum of five capped internationals and two uncapped Indian players, with a total pay ceiling of ₹120 crore available at the mega auction for each side to assemble a squad of 25 players.
Both the first IPL winners, the Rajasthan Royals, and the reigning champions, the Kolkata Knight Riders, have kept six players. The Chennai Super Kings, Gujarat Titans, Lucknow Super Giants, Mumbai Indians, and Sunrisers Hyderabad have retained five players each. Meanwhile, four, three, and two players have been retained by the Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), and Punjab Kings (PBKS), respectively.
The full list of retained players is as follows:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Rinku Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abhishek Porel
Mumbai Indians: Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma
Punjab Kings: Shashank Singh, Prabhsimran Singh
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Sandeep Sharma
Gujarat Titans: Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal
Lucknow Super Giants: Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head
The mega auction in Jeddah is expected to draw global attention, setting the tone for an exhilarating 2025 IPL season. Fans and franchise owners alike are keen to see how the auction unfolds, with strategic bidding wars anticipated to reshape teams and fuel excitement.