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It’s that time of the year. Woohooooo!!! The buildup, the anticipation and the excitement of the unknown. The Indian Premier League (IPL) mini-auction for season 16 is set to be held on Friday (December 23, 2022).

Captains released, key players retained, curious trading and a lot of action has already taken place as all 10 franchises devise their plans for the upcoming season. The league stage is back to the home-and-away format for IPL 2023. The tournament will feature 74 league matches, with the same group format as 2022, followed by the playoffs.

As for us, we’ve retained 15 of our players from our batch of 2022, and have drafted in Jason Behrendorff through a pre-auction trade. So, effectively, we have the space for nine players (six Indian, three overseas). Paltan, let us take a look at everything you need to know ahead of an interesting mini-auction - the rules, the purse, the slots, the requirements. 

What: IPL 2023 Auction

When: December 23, 2022

Where: Kochi

What to expect: Plenty of bid wars, some misses, some homecomings, some new signings, some surprises, some letting-go-ofs, some raw faces getting unearthed, certain entertainment

Slots and purse value left: 

Rules and regulations:

Well, like with life, the IPL Auction has a bunch of technical rules we’d need to follow. While some franchises have undergone a complete overhaul, a few franchises need mere garnishings. We fall somewhere in between. Okay, here they come:  

• The franchises will have an additional INR five crore over their purse amount remaining from last year, and the released players’ value
• Franchises will have to spend at least 75 percent of the total purse 
• The Right to Match (RTM) card, which has allowed franchises to bring back some of their heroes back in the past, is not available this time
• Teams will need to have between 17 to 25 Indian players and can have a maximum of 8 overseas players for 2023
• If a player is unsold, he can be brought back in the mini-auction into the later stages at the demand of the franchises 

The X-factor: Tactical substitutions 

The BCCI has indicated that tactical substitutions would make an appearance in 2023. So every team will effectively be playing a 12-man-per-side game, which now would bring in the additional angle of putting their monies on role-specific players. 

Fun, right? Rohit Sharma, Mark Boucher, and the rest of the think-tank are all set to don their strategy hats, and as the 23rd of December dawns in, and we get set to battle it out in the auction room, brace yourselves for a proper rollercoaster ride.