While it is confirmed that the IPL Auction slated to be held on November 24 and 25 will take place in Saudi Arabia, but somehow the venue has presented some confusion. Earlier, it was reported that it will be hosted by Riyadh, but as per a fresh report, Jeddah will play host to the IPL Auction 2025, as per ESPNCricinfo.
IPL Auction in Jeddah
Meanwhile, this will be for the second successive time that an IPL Auction will be held outside of India — Auction for 2024 took place in Dubai. It will also clash with the third and fourth day of the IND vs AUS first Test in Perth. This time around, the franchises would look to build their squads till 2027.
October 31 was the deadline for all teams to come up with their IPL Retentions. As many as 46 players were retained across all franchises. RCB went on to make the most expensive retention, in the form of Virat Kohli at INR 21 Cr. MI ended up spending the most money, as they retained their dependable players like Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav for 75 Cr.
On the other hand, PBKS will have the most work to do in IPL Auction, as they just retained Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh, and have 110.5 Cr left in their purse. Having said that, KKR will have to do a lot of work as well, given that they have let go their player skipper from 2024, Shreyas Iyer.
Similar will be the situation with DC, who did not retain Rishabh Pant. In fact, the latter is slated to become the most expensive buy ever, in the history of IPL Auction. Not just that, it was also reported that as many as 1574 players registered for the IPL Auction. That also included 1 player from Italy, and 10 players from the USA. While the names of these players are not revealed; it would come out at a later date, once the teams filter out, as to what players they need.