Corey Anderson, Kevin Pietersen, Quinton De Kock, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh will just be a few of the names that will have the spotlight firmly planted on them when the IPL 7 auction gets underway in Bangalore on Wednesday morning.
Where to Watch Live
The auction begins at 9.30 am IST (11 pm ET, 4 am GMT) in the morning on Wednesday, with coverage starting at 9 am IST on Sony Six in India. Starsports.com has a tie up with the Times Group for live streaming IPL 7 this season, and the website will be showing the auction live online HERE.
Viewers in the UK can catch the action live online via ITV streaming HERE, while Africa viewers can live stream the auction HERE. Neo Cricket will broadcast the IPL auction live in the US, but unfortunately there is no official live streaming option available.
For IB Times IN's live coverage of the auctions from Bangalore, click HERE.
For a report of the first marquee pool click HERE
For the second marquee pool click HERE.
Find the full list and summary of wicketkeepers, all-rounders and bowlers HERE.
All eight of the IPL franchises will look to build a team capable of competing for the title come May, 2014 and 514 players will be hoping to find a team for the new season.
Some of the other big names include Mahela Jayawardene, Jacques Kallis, David Warner, George Bailey, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Murali Vijay, Shaun Marsh, Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor.
Three teams - Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians -- retained the maximum five players allowed, while Delhi Daredevils have gone the other way by choosing to rebuild from the bottom by not retaining a single player.
The Kings XI Punjab chose to stick with two players - David Miller and Manan Vohra - while the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) kept hold of three of their marquee players - Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders retained two players each, with the former choosing to keep Shikhar Dhawan and Dale Steyn, while the latter held on to Gautam Gambhir and Sunil Narine.
It will be interesting to see how all eight franchises go into the auction, with the teams that have retained all five players especially hamstrung by the fact that they have a smaller purse to play with.
"We've retained five of our players and that was really important to us because we wanted to keep our core group together," Royals mentor Rahul Dravid told the team's official website. "The main reason for retaining this core group was that we had already created a great culture and great team spirit with them.
"More importantly, all the players that we have retained have identified with the Royals in one way or another. So it was very important from our perspective as a team and also from our fans' perspective that we retained these players. Our fans can identify with them because they're all associated with the Royals, and that was critical for us."
Dravid admitted it won't be easy to bring in 15-20 players - a franchise can have a maximum of 20 players in their squad, with nine foreigners -- at a limited budget, particularly with some of the other franchises likely to bid huge amounts for the big-name players.
"Obviously what the retention means is that we still have to pick another 15-20 players keeping in mind our limited cap," he added. "And that I think is a challenge. But, yes while I think this is going to be a tricky auction, one of the good things is that there are a lot of options this year.
"Especially, there are a lot of good uncapped young Indian players coming into the auction and that's a good list to pick from. We do know that we have options and hopefully we can build our team around these five retained players and supplement them with these new players and build a pretty strong team.
"I believe that one will need to be very flexible in this auction and you cannot go with too many set plans. This time around, there are too many variables and too many players. So you will have to be flexible and make decisions at the spur of the moment when you are seated at the auction table. So, I think how one thinks on that particular day is going to be important."
