IPL Players' draft to be held in Mumbai on Dec 15

The IPL Players' draft to allow two new franchises based in Pune and Rajkot pick 10 players of their choice will be held at the Mumbai Cricket Association's clubhouse in the Bandra-Kurla Complex on December 15. 

"The draft pick is to be held at the BKC clubhouse starting at 12:15 pm on the 15th," a top BCCI source told PTI. 

Sanjeev Goenka's New Rising won the bid for the Pune franchisee while Intex won for Rajkot after a reverse bidding process held in Delhi on December 8. 

Goenka's company will shell out Rs 16 crores while Intex will pay Rs 10 crores to the BCCI. Pune will be given the choice to pick the players first because they were the lowest bidders (negative bids) to buy the new team for two years. 

The bidding process for the two new franchises was necessitated by the suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals for the involvement of some of their officials and co-owners in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, which was probed by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice (retd) R M Lodha committee. 

However, both the CSK and RR will be allowed back in the league after serving out their suspension. The cricketers from the two suspended franchises will be divided into two groups of capped and uncapped and the top names will be sold through the draft system.

The two new teams will have a minimum of Rs 40 crore and a maximum of Rs 66 crore to buy players. 

Among the players expected to feature in the draft, it would be interesting to see whether India's limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni still commands the sort of attraction that he had when CSK grabbed him with a million-dollar bid in the first-ever players' auction held eight years ago. 

Dhoni, who led CSK for eight seasons, is expected to be in the first list of the draft. It would also be interesting to note whether Rajkot guns for its home player Ravindra Jadeja whose stocks have risen of late after he made his comeback into the Indian squad in the
Test series against South Africa.

Other leading players who could be in the draft are CSK's Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Dwayne Bravo and Brendon McCullum and RR's Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith and Shane Watson.