Ashwin, Warner, Iyer among marquee set at 2022 IPL mega auction

R Ashwin, Trent Boult, Pat Cummins, Quinton de Kock, Shikhar Dhawan, Faf du Plessis, Shreyas Iyer, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Shami and David Warner are the players who will be part of the marquee set in the 2022 Indian Premier League mega auction, which will be held on February 12 and 13 in Bengaluru, the BCCI announced on Tuesday (February 1).

Earlier, 1214 players had registered for the auction but the final list was pruned to 590. It also included 44 new players who were later added to the list upon the request from the franchises. Usman Khawaja and Andile Phehlukwayo were also not part of the original list but have been added to the new one. Jofra Archer, who is unlikely to feature in the next edition of the IPL, will also be part of the auction, with the ECB confirming that the paceman will be available for the 2023 and 2024 editions.

"The ECB has registered Jofra Archer for the auction with a view to potential participation in 2023 and 2024, as due to his current injury it is unlikely that he can participate in IPL 2022. Therefore, his name has been included in the auction list but he won't feature in the marquee or other sets to be presented. He will be available to be called during the accelerated auction and whoever picks him will not get a replacement player for IPL 2022 season for his place as he is already injured and unlikely to participate in IPL 2022 season," IPL chief operating officer Hemang Amin was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

Amongst 590 players who have registered for the auction, 228 are capped players, 355 are uncapped players and seven belong to Associate Nations. INR 2 crore is the highest reserve price and as many as 48 players have chosen to place themselves in this bracket. There are 20 players in the auction list with a reserve price of INR 1.5 crore while 34 players are in the list of cricketers with a reserve price of INR 1 crore.  

Odean Smith, who had earlier put himself in the INR 2 crore bracket, has reduced his price to INR 1 crore. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu's big-hitter Shahrukh Khan has increased his price from INR 20 lakh to 40 lakh.  

With two new franchises - Lucknow and Ahmedabad - joining in, this will be the first mega auction since 2018. Ahmedabad have already drafted Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill, while Lucknow got KL Rahul, Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi.

A total of 33 players have been retained/drafted ahead of the auction. Every franchise can pick maximum of 25 players, and Punjab Kings (72 crore), Sunrisers Hyderabad (68 crore) and Rajasthan Royals (62 crore) will go into the auction with the most amount of money. If every franchise were to have the maximum of 25 players in their squad, 217 players will be taken in the auction (of which up to 70 may be overseas players).