IPL Player Retention 2018: Our predictions and everything you need to know

IPL auction will take place later this month, however the Indian Premier League will hold its player retention ceremony on Thursday evening in Mumbai. The players retention will decide the shape of the mega auction later this month.

Here is what you need to know aboy the whole event:

What does Pre Auction Retention mean?

Retention gives each and every franchise an opportunity to keep certain number of players from the previous squad before the auction takes place. The players retained by each franchise are not included in the auction pool of players.

Read: IPL retention full list

What is Pre-Auction Retention?

Retention gives each and every franchise an opportunity to keep certain number of players from the previous squad before the auction takes place. The players retained by each franchise are not included in the auction pool of players.

What is the Right-to-Match card?

The Right-to-Match card gives the franchise a chance to retain players by bidding at the same auction price presented by the rival franchise during the auction.

How the Right-to-Match card works?

Player Retention Policy

All the eight franchises that will be playing in the upcoming IPL 2018 are allowed to have 5 player retentions.

The process of retaining players will be carried using the following combination –

Three retentions (pre player auction) and two Right to Match cards (during the player auction)

Two Right to Match cards (during the player auction) and three retentions (pre player auction)

The teams can retain or use a Right to Match (RTM) card for a maximum of 3 players only.

If a franchise doesn’t retain even a single player before the auction, they are still not eligible for using more than 3 Right to Match Cards.

The criteria for selection of retained players is as below:

Maximum of 3 capped Indian players

Maximum of 2 uncapped Indian players

Maximum of 2 overseas players

Players who played for RR/CSK in the previous teams and later joined RPS/GL respectively will be open for retention. Players from RR/CSK who joined franchises other than RPS/GL can be retained)/RTM by RR/CSK or can go back to the auction pool.

Franchise Squad Size

All the franchises can have a maximum of 25 players in the squad, which include a maximum of 8 overseas players.
Every team must have a minimum 18 players in the squad.

Salary Cap

The salary cap for the current 2018 season will be INR 80 Crores. It will be increased to INR 82 Crores and 85 Crores in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

The minimum expenditure of the team should be 60 Crores i.e. 75% of the salary cap value.

Here are our predictions of player retentions for IPL 2018:

Chennai Super Kings 

Players retained: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina

Royal Challengers Bangalore 

Players retained: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal

Mumbai Indians 

Players retained: Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya

Kolkata Knight Riders 

Players retained: Sunail Naraine, Chris Lynn

Kings XI Punjab 

Players retained: None

Delhi Daredevils 

Players retained: Chris Morris

Rajasthan Royals 

Players retained: Steve Smith

Sunrisers Hyderabad 

Players retained: David Warner, Bhuvneshwar Kumar