Why is Saudi Arabia hosting IPL 2025 player auction?

Mega event to take place in Jeddah on November 24 and 25

IPL chairman Arun Dhumal during the player auction at the Coca Cola Arena in Dubai last year. Sportzpics for IPL

The Indian Premier League is many months away but the action around it never seems to stop.

There was bound to be a lot of noise surrounding the 2025 IPL as it was the cycle where all teams hit the reset button by retaining a handful of players and sending everyone else back to the auction pool.

At the end of last month, all 10 franchises announced their list of retained players with a number of surprises.

South African batsman Heinrich Klaasen was the most expensive retention at $2.7 million by Sunrisers Hyderabad, while West Indies batsman Nicholas Pooran (Lucknow) and Indian superstar Virat Kohli (Bengaluru) came in second behind him at $2.5m.

A number of big names were released into the auction pool, including the likes of Kolkata's winning captain Shreyas Iyer and Delhi's Rishabh Pant.

The focus now shifts to the mega player auction that takes place later this month.

When and where is the IPL 2025 player auction taking place?

The player auction will take place on November 24 and 25 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The number of players involved means the auction will run across two days with a large contingent of representatives from the 10 franchises and broadcasters.

Why is the auction taking place in Saudi Arabia?

This is not the first time the player auction is venturing out of India. Last year, the player auction was held at the Coca-Cola in Dubai. There, records were broken as Australia's World Cup heroes Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins became the most expensive players in the history of the tournament.

This time, another overseas venue was scouted for the auction with Dubai and London also reported to be on the shortlist, alongside Riyadh and Jeddah. London did not make the cut eventually, most likely due to weather and time zone factors.

Saudi Arabia was finalised as the venue, which can only foster warming of ties between the kingdom and the sport.

Up until recently, the kingdom's state-owned Aramco was one of the sponsors in the IPL, but then decided to discontinue their partnership. Earlier, reports had emerged for Saudi Arabia being keen to invest in the Indian Premier League but technical and legal complexities in the structure of the IPL are said to have stopped any development on that front.

The IPL auction taking place in Saudi Arabia also sends a message of the kingdom being in the sights of cricket's stakeholders in some capacity.

The auction is scheduled to take place at the Abady Al Johar Arena, also known as Benchmark Arena.

IPL 2025 retained players

How many players will participate in the auction?

A grand total of 1,574 players (1,165 Indian and 409 overseas) have signed up to be part of the player auction.

A majority of the overseas contingent are from familiar cricket countries such as Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand, and other Test nations. However, players from Associate teams are also hopeful of landing a bid. One player from Italy has entered the player auction, too.

Interestingly, England's Test legend James Anderson, who recently retired from cricket, has made himself available for the auction. However star all-rounder Ben Stokes has not put his name in the auction hat, possibly due to the IPL's newly implemented and strict rules around players signing up for auction and then pulling out of the tournament.