The Indian Premier League will allow all the 10 franchises an auction purse of INR 90 crore, an increase of INR 5 crore from the 2021 IPL Mini Auction purse. The IPL Governing Council will also allow the older franchises to retain up to four players in the retentions window that begins from November 1 and go on till the 30th.
As per the rules, the two new franchises, Ahmedabad and Lucknow will then be allowed to pick three players each of their choices from the ones not retained and pre-sign them before the IPL 2022 auctions. There was no mention of the Right to Match Cards in the letter sent by BCCI and IPL GC to the franchises.
The window for the two new franchises for pre-signing the players will begin from December 1 and go on up to December 25, with the IPL 2022 Auction most probably happening in January 2022.
The GC also decided on the salary cap of the retained players and if a franchise chooses to retain four players, it will have to lose a total of INR 42 crore from its auction purse.
In case the older franchises are retaining four players, they will be charged INR 16 crore for the first, INR 12 crore for the second, INR 8 crore for the third and INR 6 crore for the fourth player.
If the franchises choose to retain three players then their slabs are: INR 15 crore, INR 11 crore and INR 7 crore, for a total of INR 33 crore.
If two players are retained, then the slabs are INR 14 crore and INR 10 crore, for a total of INR 24 crore. For only one player, INR 14 crore will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse and if the sole retention is that of an uncapped player, then the amount deducted will be INR 4 crore.
There is a cap that the franchises can’t retain more than three Indian capped players, not more than two international players and not more than two uncapped players in case of four retained players.
In the case of three retentions, not more than two Indians, not more than one international and uncapped player is allowed to be retained. This rule will also apply to the new franchises.
Yes, the franchises can and most likely will pay players more than the slab limit to retain them. It happened in 2018 when RCB and Virat Kohli agreed that the Indian captain’s fee would be INR 17 crore, two more than the slab limit of INR 15 crore.
But if that is the case, then the extra amount will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse. The franchise can decide to keep a player and pay him lower than the band as well, but it wouldn’t make sense as the slab amount will anyways be deducted from the Auction purse.