IPL Governing Council Meeting: New Rules On Retentions, Impact Player | What We Know

The Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council meeting convened in Bengaluru on Saturday (September 28, 2024) resulted in the introduction of a number of fresh regulations for the 2025 edition of the world's most cash-rich league. (More Cricket News)

Firstly, the 10 franchises will be allowed to retain a maximum of six players from their previous squads, including one Right To Match (RTM) card at the auction that will cost INR 75 crore out of an enhanced team purse of INR 120 crore.

Further, the IPL governing council decided to continue with the hotly-debated Impact Player rule for the upcoming season. The Impact Sub was introduced during the IPL 2023 and since then the rule has divided opinion.

Even in the meeting the BCCI had with the team owners earlier this July, some franchises like Delhi Capitals were entirely in favour of retaining the Impact Player rule, primarily because it reduced the importance of the all-rounders.

The Impact Player rule allows a team to replace a player from the starting XI and bring in a specialist batter or bowler as per the match situation. The rule could also mean that CSK's 'Forever Captain in Spirit' Mahendra Singh Dhoni can play one more season of IPL with Shivam Dube playing purely as a slogger.

As for the retention rule, a team was allowed up to four retentions in the last mega auction held in 2022.

The total salary cap will now consist of auction purse, incremental performance pay and match fees. Previously in 2024, the total salary cap (auction purse + incremental performance pay) was INR 110 crore, which will now be INR 146 crore for 2025, 151 crore for 2026 and 157 crore for 2027.

On the day, BCCI secretary Jay Shah also announced a fixed match fee of INR 7.50 lakh for all players selected to play the league games with an additional 1.05 crore income over and above their salaries.

A fixed salary purse of INR 12.60 crore in addition to the auction cum retention purse of INR 120 crore will thus have to be kept by the franchises for next season.

(With PTI inputs)