The player auction for the IPL 2018 auction will be held in Bengaluru on Jan. 27 and 28, 2018.

It is said that the IPL Governing Council decided on the dates during the meeting held in New Delhi on Dec. 6. It was in that meeting that BCCI apprised the franchise representatives about the retention process.

The auction ahead of the IPL-2018 will be a bigger affair, given that each franchise can retain a maximum of five players from their existing rosters through a combination of pre-auction retention and Right To Match (RTM) cards. According to sources, teams have until Jan. 4 to submit their retention lists while the BCCI itself will make public their full list of to-be-auctioned players on Jan. 18.

Franchises will each begin with an auction purse of Rs. 80 crore to build a 25-member squad. Each team will have to spend at least 75 per cent of the salary cap (Rs. 60 crore) by the end of the two-day procedure. Retained players will have a more dynamic effect on the team’s salary purse depending on the number of players retained by the franchise.