The Board of Control for Cricket in India is planning to add two new franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2022 edition.

As reported by TOI, the board has prepared a blueprint for the next IPL season. The addition of new franchises, increasing the salary purse for teams, player retentions, mega IPL auction, and other plans are on the BCCI’s list.

The BCCI will invite tenders for two New IPL franchises in mid-August. Following all the procedures, the bidding process will start in mid-October. TOI reports that RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group based out of Kolkata (who previously owned the Rising Pune Supergiant), Adani Group in Ahmedabad, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd based in Hyderabad, and the Torrent Group from Gujarat have shown their interest.

Increase in Salary Purse for franchises

The franchises have a salary purse of 85 crores, which will be increased to 90 crores for IPL 2022. It is mandatory for the franchises to spend 75% of the allocated purse. The purse will increase by 5 crores each season for the next three years till 2024. For the player retentions, each franchise will be allowed to retain four players.

They can retain three Indians and one overseas or two Indians and two overseas players. The existing salary bracket for player retention might change as the board has increased the retention to four. The mega auction will most likely take place in December.

“Some players may like the idea of not wanting to be retained and will want to head into the auction. That’s because there is an increase in the salary purse and two new teams are being added. So, there’ll be rush to grab talent. Expect some leading Indian Cricketers to forward their names for the auctions.” said those tracking the developments to TOI.

The BCCI is also planning to invite a media-rights tender at the end of 2021.

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