IPL 2018: Here is BCCI's Christmas gift to teams ahead of auction

The Indian Premier League teams have got their own way as the T20 domestic competitions like Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament and the T20 Zonal league have been preponed by the BCCI, which will please all franchises. This will give all the eight teams' scouts a chance to have a look at domestic T20 players before the auction, which has been scheduled for January 27-28 in Bengaluru.

The T20 zonal league was originally scheduled from January 21 to 29 while the Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament was set to start from February 4 to 10. According to The Indian Express, T20 zonal league has been preponed to January 8 to 16 and the other T20 competition will now be played from January 21 to 27. However, Irani Trophy has been postponed from January to March.

Such kind of schedule changes show how the IPL teams are desperate to get hold of quality and in-form domestic players.

With a team allowed to have only four foreigners, there will be seven Indian players featuring in the playing XI, which makes it necessary for all the teams to have good domestic cricketers, who will make the squad even stronger.

This IPL 2018 auction is going to be one of the biggest events ever in the cash-rich competition history with a number of players set to be a part of the mega auction pool.

With most of the domestic players to be included in the IPL mega auction pool of players, their names will go under the hammer.

Domestic and talented uncapped players, as one has witnessed in the past, can go for surreal money as well. The likes of Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Murugan Ashwin and Mohammed Siraj are perfect examples to fall under this bracket.