The owner of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kavya Maran, is in favor of allowing each team to keep more players before the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2025. At a meeting with other IPL team owners at the BCCI headquarters on Wednesday, Maran suggested that each team should be able to retain or have the option to match offers for at least six players. This would help teams keep their main players. “Teams could choose to retain four players and have the option to match offers for two others, or retain all six, or have the option to match offers for all six. The decision on whether to retain a player or use the option to match an offer should be up to the team, after talking with the player.”
“In the past, players have often chosen to enter the auction when they believed the amount offered for keeping them on the team was too low. Sometimes, several players have thought they should be the top priority for retention, and if they weren’t, they requested to be included in the auction. To prevent this, we could allow players to either stay with their current team or return to the team at the price determined by the market, ensuring they are satisfied with the retention price.”
“If only keeping players is allowed, there’s a chance that teams will pay their kept players more than the set amount through extra deals. But with the Right to Match, a player gets the fair price in the auction within the limits of the team’s budget. This makes sure that the budget controls and limits how much all teams can spend, not just how much money the team has… It also helps keep things honest and protects the reputation of an important league like the IPL,” she explained.
The owner of SRH also mentioned in the meeting that any player who doesn’t play in the tournament after being chosen in the auction should be stopped from playing if they don’t have a serious injury.
“After being picked in the auction, if a player doesn’t play the season for any reason other than injury, they should be stopped from playing,” she said.
