The big names of modern-day cricket like England Test captain Ben Stokes, all-rounder Sam Curran, Australian all-rounder Cameron Green, and New Zealand captain Kane Williamson are among the players with the maximum reserve price of INR 2 crore as a total of 991 players including 714 Indian and 277 overseas have registered to be part of the IPL 2023 Player Auction, which is set to take place on December 23 in Kochi.
Apart from Stokes, Curran, Green and Williamson, the likes of Nicholas Pooran, Chris Jordan, Rilee Rossouw, and Rassie van der Dussen are the other noticeable names among 21 players, who have been included in the highest bracket.
A notable exclusion from the overall list is veteran Australian pacer Mitchell Starc who hasn't registered. On the other hand, Australia's Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins had earlier pulled out citing workload issues.
The IPL Player Registration closed on November 30, 2022, and the long list includes 185 capped, 786 uncapped and 20 players from associate nations. As per a BCCI release, the players have been divided into various categories -- capped Indian (19 players), capped international (166), associate (20), uncapped Indians who were a part of previous IPL seasons (91), uncapped international who were a part of previous IPL seasons (3), uncapped Indians (604 players), uncapped Internationals (88 players).
Notably, if every franchise were to have a maximum of 25 players in their squad, 87 players are available to be bought in the auction (of which up to 30 players can be overseas players). In what is a first, not one Indian player is listed in the highest reserve price band of Rs 2 crore.
Amongst the Indian players registered, those with a base price of Rs 1 crore are Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav. Indian national players like Ajinkya Rahane, and Ishant Sharma, who are not in the scheme of things as of now, have reduced their prices for the auction.
Rahane's base price this time is Rs 50 lakh while Ishant, who had gone unsold in 2022, is asking for Rs 75 lakh. Left-arm fast bowler Jaydev Unadkat, who has been among the highest-paid players at IPL auctions, has listed his base price at Rs 50 lakh.
Unadkat, who has been in great form having led Saurashtra to the Vijay Hazare Trophy final, where he is the leading wicket-taker, was released by Mumbai Indians, who had bought him for Rs 1.3 crore in 2022.
Last month, franchises had announced the list of their retained and released players and the Sunrisers had the largest purse (Rs 42.25 crore) for the auction, followed by Punjab (Rs 32.20 crore), Lucknow (Rs 23.35 crore), Mumbai (Rs 20.55 crore), Chennai (Rs 20.45 crore), Delhi (Rs 19.45 crore), Gujarat (Rs 19.25 crore), Rajasthan Royals (Rs 13.2 crore), RCB (Rs 8.75 crore) and KKR (Rs 7.05 crore).
The Rs 2 crore list : Nathan Coulter-Nile, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Chris Lynn, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Jamie Overton, Craig Overton, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Ben Stokes, Adam Milne, Jimmy Neesham, Kane Williamson, Rilee Rossouw, Rassie van der Dussen, Angelo Mathews, Nicholas Pooran and Jason Holder.
The Rs 1.5 crore list : Sean Abbott, Riley Meredith, Jhye Richardson, Adam Zampa, Shakib Al Hasan, Harry Brook, Will Jacks, Dawid Malan, Jason Roy, Sherfane Rutherford
The Rs 1 crore lis t: Mayank Agarwal, Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Moises Henriques, Andrew Tye, Joe Root, Luke Wood, Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Martin Guptill, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Heinrich Klaasen, Tabraiz Shamsi, Kusal Perera, Roston Chase, Rakheem Cornwall, Shai Hope, Akeal Hossein, David Wiese