BCCI And IPL Owners Meet Today, Player Retentions For IPL 2025 And ‘Impact Player’ Rule To Be Discussed

The all-important meeting between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials and the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise owners is set to take place in Mumbai on Wednesday (July 31) from 730pm IST onwards. The meet holds special importance as the ‘big’ IPL auction ahead of the 2025 season is set to take place early next year. 

Matters like the IPL auction purse, player retention and the much-debated ‘Impact Player’ rule may be discussed in this meeting at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. As things stand, the IPL owners have an auction purse of Rs 100 crore but that amount may substantially increase depending on the results of this meeting.  

MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN IPL:

– BCCI & owners will meet today to decide about the retentions ahead of the mega auction. pic.twitter.com/gP3MT6LyRr

— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) July 31, 2024

According to a report in the Cricbuzz website, Players Retention/Right to Match (RTM), Salary Cap (Auction Purse, Incremental Performance Pay & Match Fee), Big Auction, Capped to uncapped players and Player Trade/Player Loan are the No. 1 agenda which will be discussed in the meeting on Wednesday evening. 

The ‘Impact Player’ rule over the last couple of seasons faced plenty of criticism with all-rounders like Washington Sundar and Axar Patel playing a diminished role in the league. 

“Yes, the good all-rounders – Axar, Jadeja and others –  continued to find a way in the XI but more options meant someone like Washington Sundar hardly played in 2024. So overall development of players like Washington Sundar was certainly impacted but at the same time, coaches had more options to play with. Like beefing up batting or strengthen bowling as per the game requirement. Whatever was happening, the spectators and viewers weren’t complaining because the match wasn’t over even when it was 50/4 or 200/3,” a franchise official was quoted as saying by the CricketNext website. 

The major talking point of the meeting is going to be the ‘retention’ rule where the BCCI will finalise how many players a team can retain ahead of the mega auction. The IPL owners are pushing the BCCI to provide at least 5-6 retentions in addition to the Right to Match (RTM) option.