The upcoming season of the Indian Premier League is expected to get bigger with the addition of two new teams – Lucknow and Ahmedabad. The BCCI will give the two teams a fair chance to build their squad in the mega IPL 2022 auction as the old eight franchises have only retained the players as they were allowed to pick five as maximum. However, the BCCI is yet to make an announcement on the date of the mega auction as they are in discussion on the approval status of the CVC Capital Partners who courted controversy after buying the Ahmedabad franchise. CVC Capital made the second-largest bid of Rs 5600 crores to pip the Adani Group for the Ahmedabad franchise but they soon came under the Board scanner for their alleged links with betting companies.
According to a report, IPL 2022 mega auction will take place in the first week of February as Bangalore and Hyderabad are the frontrunners to host the mega event.
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As per a report published on Cricket.com, “The IPL 2022 auction is all set to take place in the first week of February. The report also stated that it will be a two-day affair as it was in 2018 but the IPL GC is planning to make it a lot grander this time. Bangalore and Hyderabad have emerged as the two frontrunner cities for the IPL 2022 auction to be held keeping better screening process in mind.”
Meanwhile, the retention window for Lucknow and Ahmedabad began on December 1.
They can spend INR 33 crore each on those three players ahead of the auction. Just like in player retention, this too has a fee break-up: INR 15 crore, INR 11 crore and INR 7 crore for the first, second and third players, respectively. Also, among the three players, two have to be Indian.
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The Lucknow franchise has already roped in Andy Flower as their head coach and former India opener Gautam Gambhir as their mentor. Flower was working with Punjab Kings as an assistant coach for the past two seasons. KL Rahul, who was Punjab’s skipper for the last two seasons, is also expected to move to the Sanjiv Goenka-owned franchise.
Earlier in a report on Cricbuzz, it was stated that the fixtures of the next season have not been finalised but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has internally conveyed to the key stakeholders that April 2 is the most likely day to begin the IPL 2022 campaign in Chennai.
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