Franchises won’t have right to match card

NEWDELHI: Franchises won’t have the provision of using the ‘right to match’ card in the IPL auction in Bangalore on Monday, according to an official in the know of things. If the ‘right to match’ card isn’t used this auction, plans of some franchises, especially those who had released most of their players, may go for a toss.

Franchises release players and use the card (given according to the number of players released by the team) to buy whoever they want to bring back, hopefully by paying less than what they had shelled out for him earlier. A typical example is how KKR had bought back Yusuf Pathan in the 2014 auction for just ~3.25 crore, almost 9 crore less than what they had paid for him in the 2011 auction. All the franchises need to do is to match the highest bid for that player.

If there is no ‘right to match’ card available, then franchises will be forced to rework their ‘player allocation’. Every franchise has a list of players they want to go after.

Normally, franchises allocate less for the players they want to buy back, hoping there won’t be too much bidding on them. In the absence of the ‘right to match’ option, franchises can’t take that player for granted and leave it too late.

This looks to work out heavily in favour of the franchises who have retained most players. With 20 players, Mumbai Indians look extremely settled with a tried and tested core and they might anyway bid for a handful of players. A total of players including

overseas players will go under the hammer. The pool comprises batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders and wicket-keepers. uncapped players are waiting to make their debut this season inclusive of players from Afghanistan.