Delhi: After the IPL Governing Council meeting on Wednesday, it is very likely that former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni would turn up for the Chennai Super Kings, which served a two-year suspension.
In the meeting held in New Delhi, it was decided that both these franchises would also be allowed to retain players from their 2015 roster.
“An IPL Franchise is eligible to secure up to 5 players by virtue of a combination of Player Retention [Pre Player Auction] and Right to Match [RTM] [During the Player Auction],” said BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary after the meeting.
He also added, “The player pool available for CSK and RR for retention/RTM will be the players’ who played for them respectively in IPL 2015 and who were part of RPS and Gujarat Lions squads in IPL 2017.”
Now, a franchise can retain upto five players of which, it can retain three before the auctions. Also it can retain a maximum of three other players during the auctions through the right-to-match (RTM) cards. Through a RTM card, a franchise can buy back a player during the auctions by matching the highest bid made for that player.
The salary budget of the franchises also has been increased by the Governing Council from ₹66 crore to ₹80 crore.
Stated the BCCI, “The minimum spend will be 75 per cent of the salary cap for each season.”
The base prices for the players also has been hiked. Previously, the uncapped Indian players would have base prices of ₹10, ₹20 and ₹30 lakhs, which have been increased by ₹10 lakhs each. Now their base prices would be ₹20, ₹30 and ₹40 lakhs.
For a capped Indian player, the base price has been increased from ₹30 to ₹50 lakhs.
Under Dhoni, CSK has been one of the most consistent sides in the IPL and have also been champions twice. After the franchise was banned for two years along with Rajasthan Royals, Dhoni had turned up for the Rising Pune Supergiants. He captained the team in it’s debut season in 2016 and was a part of the squad that lost this year’s final against Mumbai Indians by just one run.