The BCCI has decided to penalise players who make themselves unavailable after being bought at the auction
NEW DELHI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to penalise players who pull out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) after getting picked at the auction. In the last few editions, there were multiple instances of players, mostly overseas, withdrawing from the cash-rich league and all franchises had raised the issue during their meeting with Indian cricket board’s top brass earlier this year.
In the IPL Player Regulations 2025-27 announced last week, the BCCI has made it clear that a player would be banned from participating for 2 Seasons if he makes himself unavailable before the start of the season.
“Any player who registers in the player auction and after getting picked at the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will get banned from participating in the tournament and player auction for 2 Seasons.”
Additionally, there was a growing trend of overseas players not participating in the mega auction and making themselves available only for the mini auction. The dynamics of the mini auction are different from the big auction and it has often seen intense bidding wars.
Even during the last mini auction, Mitchell Starc (Rs 24.75 crores) and Pat Cummins (Rs 20.50 crores) were top buys, record buys, and both hadn’t made themselves available in the auction preceding the mini-auction.
To tackle and avoid situations like these, the BCCI has made it mandatory for players to register for the Big Auction to become eligible for auctions which follow.
“Any Overseas Player will have to register for the Big Auction. In case the overseas player doesn’t register, then he will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction.”
How to tackle fitness related withdrawals?
In case of a medical/fitness related condition, the Indian cricket board has decided to rely on the confirmation from the player’s home board but would need a better mechanism in place going forward.
The ideal approach would be to have a system in place at the new Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru where the team of specialists verify the claims and it remains to be seen whether the Indian cricket board looks in that direction.
As of now, the BCCI has made it clear to overseas players that they can’t pick and choose auctions.
