The eight franchises of the Indian Premier League, on Thursday, are set to announce the list of players they have retained for the upcoming season.

Six of the eight franchises can keep hold up to to five players who played for them last season through a combination of pre-auction retention and by using a Right to Match card.

The Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, who make their return after serving a two-year suspension for their involvement in the 2013 spot-fixing scandal, can keep up to five players who played for them in 2015. The only caveat is here is that the players should have been picked by either Rising Pune Supergiants or Gujarat Lions in 2016.

Here is a brief of what the IPL governing council decided after holding a meeting with the Committee of Administrators and chairman Rajeev Shukla in New Delhi.

Player Retention Policy

An IPL Franchise is eligible to secure up to 5 players by virtue of a combination of Player Retention (before the auctions) and Right to Match (RTM). A maximum of either 3 retention or 3 RTM at the discretion of the franchise.

If there is no retention before player auction then franchises can have up to 3 RTM.

Player retention price guideline

Three players retained pre-auction and its salary cap

Player 1: Rs 15 crore

Player 2: Rs 11 crore

Player 3: Rs 7 crore

Option 2 [Two players retained pre-auction]

Player 1: 12.5 crore

Player 2: 8.5 crore

Option 3 [One player retained pre-auction]

Player 1: 12.5 crore

Uncapped players will cost Rs 3 crore per player

Mandatory rules

  • Maximum number of 3 Capped Indian players.
  • Maximum number of 2 Overseas players.
  • Maximum number of 2 Uncapped Indian players.
  • The player pool available for Chennai and Rajasthan for retention will be the players who played for them in IPL 2015. They should have also been a part of Rising Pune Supergiant or the Gujarat squads in IPL 2017.

Minimum auction reserve price

On uncapped players, there will be a Rs 10 lakh increase in the reserve price this season. As for capped players, Rs 30 lakh player will be sold for Rs 50 lakh. A 50 lakh player, meanwhile, will be sold for Rs 75 lakh. There is no change in the minimum auction reserve price for players in the range of Rs 1, 1.5 and 2 crore.

Squad size

Each team can have a maximum of 25 players, which includes up to eight overseas players and a minimum of 18 players.