IPL 2025: A star-studded affair, but where's Ben Stokes?

Ben Stokes missing as Italian quick Thomas Draca, India-born USA medium pacer Saurabh Netravalkar line up in long list for IPL mega auction

England Test skipper Ben Stokes is missing from the list of 1,574 players while his former teammate James Anderson, Italian quick Thomas Draca and India-born USA medium pacer Saurabh Netravalkar have all registered for the IPL mega auction to be held in Jeddah on November 24 and 25.

The list, which will be shortened after the franchises provide their inputs, has all the marquee Indian players who were released from their teams including Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Each of these five cricketers have listed themselves at a base price of Rs 2 crore.

India quick Mohammed Shami, who has been sidelined from action due to various injuries since last November, was also released by his former team Gujarat Titans and has listed himself at Rs 2 crore and so has left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh.

Among the other Indian players in the list with the maximum base price of Rs 2 crore are Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan, Deepak Chahar, Ishan Kishan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

This list also includes Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Devdutt Padikkal, Krunal Pandya, Harshal Patel, Prasidh Krishna, T Natarajan, Washington Sundar and Umesh Yadav.

India batters Sarfaraz Khan and Prithvi Shaw, who were unsold in the last IPL auction, have registered themselves at the base price of Rs 75 lakh each.

Stokes, who had decided to give the last season of the IPL a miss in order to manage his workload and focus on his fitness, has opted out for the 2025 edition as well.

The 42-year-Anderson, who retired from Test cricket earlier this year, has registered for the IPL for the first time. The veteran pacer last played a T20 10 years ago in 2014. He has never competed in a global franchise T20 league. He has a base price of Rs 1.25 crore.

Netravalkar, who rose to prominence due to his stupendous performance for USA during the T20 World Cup earlier this year, has also lined up to go under the hammer in Jeddah. The software engineer in Oracle has a base price of Rs 30 lakh.

Ace Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon, who has gone unsold in previous auctions, has also entered the fray with the a base price of Rs 2 crore.

Australian pacer Mitchell Starc, who was the most expensive buy in the IPL's last auction at a price of Rs 24.50 crore, is back in the pool for this year's auction with a base price of Rs 2 crore.

England quick Jofra Archer, who last played in the 2023 edition, is also listed for the same base price.

Draca becomes first Italian player to register

Medium pacer Thomas Draca has become the first player from Italy to register for the IPL. The 24-year has played four T20 Internationals since making his debut for Italy in June this year.

He impressed with his recent performance at the Global T20 Canada in August. Draca was the joint second-highest wicket-taker of the tournament with 11 wickets to his name from six innings at an average of 10.63 and an economy of 6.88.

The Italian pacer was recently signed by the Mumbai Indians owned MI Emirates for the upcoming season of the ILT20 in the UAE.

Draca has registered himself at abse prices of Rs 30 lakh in the all-rounders' category.

With up to six players permitted to be retained ahead of the mega auction, IPL teams can build a squad of 25 players each and there will be 204 slots available after 46 players were retained by 10 teams put together.

Each team will have a total purse of Rs 120 crore as Punjab Kings have Rs 110.5 crore available with them, followed by Royal Challengers Bengaluru with Rs 83 crore, Delhi Capitals with Rs 73 crore and Gujarat Titans with Rs 69 crore.

Lucknow Super Giants will also have Rs 69 crore in their purse while five-time winners Chennai Super Kings will have Rs 55 crore.

Last year's winners Kolkata Knight Riders will come into the auction with Rs 51 crore in purse while five-time champions Mumbai Indians will have Rs 45 crore, last year's runner-up Sunrisers Hyderabad will have Rs 45 crore and Rajasthan Royals will have Rs 41 crore.