BCCI set to meet IPL team owners on April 16, mega auction and retention agendas will be on the cards

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has called the owners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams for a meeting on Tuesday, April, 16, which will be held in Ahmedabad.

The mega auction is set to take place ahead of the 2025 edition of the IPL, which is also going to be the 18th season of the popular competition. While old reports suggested that the mega auction would be scrapped from 2025, the BCCI are keen to continue the process which sees teams rope in a lot of new faces in a bid to win the coveted IPL title.

Gujarat Titans will be locking horns with Delhi Capitals at the colossal Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, on April 16. As per a report by Cricbuzz, BCCI will be having a meeting with the owners of the 10 IPL franchises on the same day in Ahmedabad. Invitations have been sent out to the owners of the teams. While they are expected to have their CEOs and operational teams for the company, the meeting is reportedly designated for the owners only.

The BCCI president and former India all-rounder Roger Binny, secretary Jay Shah, and IPL chairman Arun Singh Dhumal are scheduled to attend the meeting. The correspondence about the meeting is believed to have been sent by Hemang Amin, who is the CEO of the IPL.

While the agenda of the meeting has not been specified, given the sudden nature of the invite, it is expected that the BCCI will discuss several policy decisions, primarily concerning the mega-auction scheduled for next year. "They will discuss the way forward for the IPL," said a source familiar with the matter.

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It is expected that setting the number of retentions per team will certainly be on the agenda. Different teams have had different opinions on the matter of retentions ahead of the mega auction. It is believed that BCCI is hoping to come to a solution on this issue after discussing it with the team owners.

IPL owners may also mull over right to match cards, and salary cap with BCCI

In the past, some teams had reportedly suggested as many as eight retentions to be allowed. However, other teams want the number to be brought down substantially. Also, there could be a discussion on possibly bringing back the Right to Match Card, which was missing at the last mega auction ahead of IPL 2022. At that time, only four retentions were allowed per team, with a maximum of three Indians or two foreigners.

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The salary cap could also be an important point of discussion. In the IPL 2024 auction, the cap was set at INR 100 crore. However, the amount could go up in the upcoming auction as the teams have seen a substantial increase in their central revenue shares following the whopping broadcast deal of INR 48,390 crore that the BCCI signed a couple of years ago.