IPL 2018 Auctions: Retention Policy explained

The IPL Governing Council, in their meeting on Wednesday 6th December, have come to a conclusion on the player retention policy for the 2018 IPL. According to the revelations, a franchisee can retain a maximum of five players, including their Right to Match(RTM).

Retention Policy

As per the governing council's decision, a franchisee can retain five players using one of the two combinations - three pre-auction retentions and two RTMs or two pre-auction retentions and three RTMs. Either way, a franchisee can retain or use RTM for a maximum of three players in the auction. Moreover, if a franchisee doesn't retain even a single player before the auction, they still can't use more than three RTMs.

Additionally, the franchisees have to keep the following in mind before retaining players:

- Maximum of three Capped Indian players.

- Maximum of two Overseas players.

- Maximum of two Uncapped Indian players.

What happens with Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals?

Both CSK and RR can retain/use RTM for any of the players who represented them in the 2015 edition of the Indian Premier League and then moved to Gujarat Lions or Rising Pune Supergiant. This has all but cleared MS Dhoni's way back to Chennai Super Kings.

Auction Purse

Salary Cap for respective seasons:

2018 – INR 80 Crore

2019 – INR 82 Crore

2020 – INR 85 Crore

Minimum expenditure: 75 percent of the salary cap for each season.

If a franchisee opts to retain three players pre-auction, it will cost them a total of INR 15, 11 and 7 Crores (INR 33 Crores) respectively for the trio. A retention of only two players would cost them INR 12.5 and 8.5 (INR 21 Crores) respectively. If they opt to retain just the one player, then they'll have to suffer a deduction of INR 12.5 Crores from their auction purse.

For uncapped players' retention, the franchisees will have to dish out INR 3 Crores per player from their auction purse.

Right to match or RTM basically gives a franchise the authority to match the highest bid for a player they didn't choose to retain pre-auction, and acquire his services again. For instance, if Royal Challengers Bangalore opt against retaining Chris Gayle and one of the other franchises buy him for an amount, say INR 5 Crores, then RCB can activate their RTM and get Gayle back for the same amount, i.e INR.5 Crores.