Richard Madley, the auctioneer, is going to bring out those plates with the names of the cricketers on them and the eight franchises will engage themselves in a bidding war, yet again, at the IPL 2016 Player Auction on Saturday at the ITC Gardenia Hotel in Bengaluru.
Two new teams -- Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions -- have been added to the tournament. These two teams have replaced Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, who have been suspended for the next two seasons of the IPL.
The franchises have already announced their list of retained players which has in turn determined their respective purses before going into the IPL 2016 auction.
A total of 351 players will be available in the auction pool (including capped and uncapped). The eight franchises can pick up a maximum of 116 players from that pool by the end of Saturday.
Mumbai Indians have retained the maximum number of cricketers. MI will be going into the auction with 19 players already in their squad and a purse of just Rs 14.40 crores. Not to forget, they are the defending champions of the IPL.
Mumbai Indians (MI) squad so far: Corey Anderson, Mitchell McClenaghan, Keiron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, Lasith Malinga, Marchant de Lange, Akshay Wakhare, Ambati Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jagadeesha Suchitch, Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Rana, Parthiv Patel, R Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Gopal, Siddhesh Lad, Unmukt Chand.
Once again Delhi Daredevils are looking to build their side from scratch. They have a purse of Rs 37.50 crores and are surely going to go for the best players in the auction pool. Dardevils have not had fruitful seasons in the near past in the IPL. For the upcoming edition of the cash-rich league, they will want to field one of the strongest teams.
Delhi Daredevils (DD) squad so far: Albie Morkel, Quinton de Kock, Imran Tahir, JP Duminy, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Quinton de Kock, Amit Mishra, Jayant Yadav, Mayank Agarwal, Mohammad Shami, Saurabh Tiwary, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreyas Iyer, Zaheer Khan.
Click here for the complete schedule of IPL 2016 player auction.
Rising Pune Supergiants are one of the two new teams in the IPL and they had the luxury of picking five players in the IPL Player Draft, which was held on 15 December, 2015. They have Rs 27 crore in their bag and will look to get their desired cricketers on board. Stephen Fleming will be their head coach and MS Dhoni will be captain the team. They will look to build a good side so that Dhoni & his boys can put up a strong challenge in the next season of the IPL.
Rising Pune Supergiants (RPSG) squad so far: MS Dhoni, Ravichandran Ashwin, Steve Smith, Faf du Plessis, Ajinkya Rahane.
Click here to know about the Top 5 Indian players who can earn big bucks.
Kings XI Punjab had an awful season in 2015, after finishing as the runners-up in 2014. They lost 11 out of their 14 league matches in the last season of the IPL. They have retained their valuable players -- both Indian and international -- who form the core of the team. They will look to add a few more talented cricketers to strengthen their side. They have a purse of Rs 23 crore.
Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) squad so far: David Miller Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Marsh, Axar Patel, Anureet Singh, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Manan Vohra, Murali Vijay, Nikhil Shankar Naik, Rishi Dhawan, Sandeep Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Wriddhiman Saha.
Click here for the IPL 2016 acution Marquee players' list
Sunrisers Hyderabad have released the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma and a few more, who could not make much of an impact in the last season of the IPL. They will look to acquire some talented cricketers, as they have the second biggest purse of Rs 30 crore.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) squad so far: David Warner, Moises Henriques, Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Ashish Reddy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bipul Sharma, Karn Sharma, KL Rahul, Naman Ojha, Parvez Rasool, Ricky Bhui, Shikhar Dhawan, Siddharth Kaul.
Click here to know about the Top 5 international bargain players.
Royal Challengers Bangalore, one of the powerhouses of the IPL, arguably, have the strongest batting team on paper. Despite that, they have not managed to win the IPL in the past eight seasons. They have one of the most destructive batting lineups and also have the likes of bowlers Mitchell Starc and Adam Milne in their ranks. RCB will have a purse of Rs 21 crore to play with on Saturday.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) squad so far: AB de Villers, David Wiese, Adam Milne, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Harshal Patel, Kedar Jadhav, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Arvind, Varun Aaron, Virat Kohli, Yuzvendra Chahal.
Gujarat Lions are the other new franchise who have been included for the next two seasons of the IPL. The Lions also had the privilege of picking up five players from the Player Draft, and they did decent business. They will have Brad Hodge as their coach and Suresh Raina will be the skipper. The Lions have a purse of Rs 27 crore, the same as the Supergiants.
Gujarat Lions (GL) squad so far: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, James Faulkner, Dwayne Bravo, Brendon McCullum.
Click here to know about the Top 5 international players who can earn big in the IPL 2016 auction.
Last but not the least, the former IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders. They have one of the most balanced sides in the tournament. With Gautam Gambhir as the captain, they have done well in the past few seasons. They also sport a destructive middle order consisting of Chris Lynn, Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell and Shakib Al Hasan. The Shah Rukh Khan-co-owned franchise will have Rs 17.75 crore in their bag to play with in the IPL 2016 player auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) squad so far: Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Chris Lynn, Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan, Gautam Gambhir, Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Sheldon Jackson, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan.
