The Indian Premier League's (IPL) Governing Council (GC) met on Tuesday (October 24) and discussed about players' retention ahead of the mega auction next year. They have floated an idea where one team could have the option of retaining a maximum of three players from their last squad.
That is just the IPL GC proposal, which has to be agreed upon by the owners of IPL franchises during a workshop next month. Opinions seem to be divided among various teams.
One of the franchises, which failed to qualify for the Playoffs last season, is against the proposal and wants to voice their views in the workshop, demanding all players to be included in the mega auction.
"We are not too convinced with the idea because retention kills the chances of the big names being available for auction. Also, the whole idea of auction came from the transfer window in football. And if you look at them, every player is free to move to whichever club they feel like according to their preference and the financial offers," "CricketNext" quoted a franchise official as saying.
"If retention is applicable even in the mega auction, then what sort of a fresh auction is it? We will surely bring this matter up with other owners and the GC during the workshop. As of now, we would like to believe that the old decision stands and all players will be available at the auction."
Now, all eyes will be on the IPL workshop, which will be attended by owners of all teams, who have a major say in how things should pan out as per the retention of the players are concerned.
If the GC, after meeting with the IPL teams' owners, somehow makes a U-turn and goes against retaining players, the mega auction will be one of the biggest ever.
It will also mean that star players like MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, AB de Villiers and David Warner going under the hammer.
Imagine a scenario, when Kohli's name comes up, all the eight teams could go for India captain. How much will he fetch?
