IPL 2023: RCB trade Behrendorff to MI with mini-auction scheduled on December 23 in Kochi

IPL 2023 Auction: Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 mini-auction to take place on December 23 in Kochi. IPL franchisees to submit the list of released players by November 15.

IPL 2023 mini-auction to take place on December 23 in Kochi (Source: ©BCCI/IPL)

Even as the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia got over with the 2010 edition champion side England winning their second trophy after decimating Pakistan with a thoroughly good bowling performance, the carnival of the shortest format of the game will keep going onwards as the mini-auction for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 is going to take place on December 23 in Kochi, where the 10 franchises will try to polish a few parts of their teams.

Retentions deadline on November 15

The IPL is expected to finalise the player pool for the auction by early December, after the franchises submit the list of players that are being released, the deadline of which is on November 15. Unlike the IPL mega auction which went on for two days, the mini-auction will be wrapped up in just one day.

All the six franchises that had brought in injury replacements during the IPL 2022 will have to decide whether to retain the replacement player or the original player or both provided the player limit allows.

Three players for now have been confirmed to change their old franchisees through the trading policy. Australia’s left-arm pacer Jason Behrendorff has joined his old side Mumbai Indians leaving Royal Challengers Bangalore while Lockie Ferguson and Rahmanullah Gurbaz will be leaving Gujarat Titans and are going to join Kolkata Knight Riders for IPL 2023.

Mumbai is always a team which loves to have a left-hand pacer in their side and with Trent Boult moving to the Rajasthan Royals set-up last year, they have gone with Behrendorff for the upcoming season.

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Pollard averaged 14.40 from 11 games in IPL 2022; MI might release him (Images ©BCCI/IPL)

Pollard-Bravo could be among the released players

Even though nothing has been confirmed yet but according to few sources, the long-time contributors in the IPL - Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo - are set to be released from Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings respectively.

After Shikhar Dhawan was officially declared to be the captain for the Punjab Kings for the next edition of the IPL, they could part relations with ex-captain Mayank Agarwal. Delhi Capitals too could release Shardul Thakur.

Multiple IPL teams may target Sam Curran in auction (Source: ©BCCI_IPL)

Sam Curran, Ben Stokes could be among huge buys in IPL mini-auction

Sam Curran who won the player of the final & tournament awards in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, for his figures of 3/12 in four overs against Pakistan in the final and taking 13 wickets in six games at an average of 11.38 and economy of just 6.52 bowling in the death overs, could earn a huge pay cheque in the mini-auction. The ex-CSK all-rounder missed the last IPL due to injury.

Ben Stokes who missed the last edition of IPL can be an expensive buy too in the mini-auction. Besides them, Australia’s upcoming star all-rounder Cameron Green who smashed 119 runs in three games against India at an average of 39.33 and strike rate of 214.55, can pocket a huge sum in the auction.

With some of the teams looking for a pure all-rounder in their ranks, who could be better than Zimbabwe’s Sikander Raza who is going through a purple patch as he scored 219 runs and took 10 wickets in the T20 World Cup 2022.

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Additional purse of INR 5 crores available for all 10 IPL franchises

The 10 teams will have to submit their list of retained players by November 15. In addition to the money left over from the previous auction, each team has been rewarded with an additional INR 5 crore (approx. USD 607,000) to spend, making the overall auction purse worth INR 95 crore (approx. USD 11.5 million).

Punjab Kings (PBKS) had the largest purse left - INR 3.45 crore (approx. USD 425,000) after their last year’s mega auction while Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) exhausted their entire purse on the auction table. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had INR 2.95 crore (approx. USD 358,000) remaining followed by Royal Challengers Bangalore who had INR 1.55 crore (USD 188,000).

The runners-up from the last season, Rajasthan Royals (RR), had INR 0.95 crore (approx. USD 115,000) while defending champions Gujarat Titans (GT) were left with INR 0.15 crore (approx. USD 18,000). Mumbai Indians (MI), Delhi Capitals (DC) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) all had INR 0.10 crore (approx. USD 12,000) whereas Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had INR 0.45 crore (approx. USD 55,000) in their purse.

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