IPL 2025: 3 Overseas players who could go unsold in upcoming auction

Only 80 overseas players are allowed to feature in each Indian Premier League season. Since the competition is pretty high, many reputed cricketers end up not being picked from the auction. In the last few years, the likes of Steve Smith, Tim Southee, Adam Zampa and Tabraiz Shamsi have gone unsold and to add to that, even Phil Salt went unsold in the IPL 2024 mega-auction before KKR signed him as Jason Roy’s replacement.

The moral of the story is, that anyone can go unsold, as the reputation factor doesn’t work much. If it did, Sourav Ganguly wouldn’t have gone unsold in the 2011 mega-auction. The franchises have been extremely smart and invest in players looking at various aspects - age, form, calibre and attitude among various other things. 

In the 2025 mega-auction, things won’t change, and some top cricketers may end up on the unsold list. Who can these be? Let’s dissect:

3. Liam Livingstone

One of the most dynamic T20 players in the world can surely not go unsold, right? Well, it’s an IPL auction. England international Liam Livingstone has a base price of INR 2 Crore and will be available in the second set of marquee players. By the time his name comes, set one will be clear, in which, Jos Buttler, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh and Mitchell Starc will go under the hammer.

Now, Livingstone coming in the Set 2 can prove to be bad for him. His qualities aren’t in question here, but the franchises may decide to save their purse for other top cricketers, particularly Indian players. On top of that, the all-rounder hasn’t made a massive impact in the IPL, having scored 111 runs in seven matches for Punjab Kings in the previous edition.

He might find a franchise in the accelerated round but there’s a massive chance that all the teams will be more-or-less complete by that time. He would have definitely found a team had he come later in the auction, but it might prove to be difficult for him early on.