BCCI tightens screws on overseas gamers, to ‘ban’ them for pulling out of IPL after being offered at public sale

The IPL Governing Council (GC) meeting occurred earlier on Saturday to finalise the retention policies for the upcoming mega IPL 2025 auction. While we got all the updates and regarding the mega auction and the number of retentions allowed, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah also dropped a bombshell.

Ban on IPL players?

Among the eight pointers released by IPL, the seventh point read: Any player who registers in the player auction and after getting picked at the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will get banned from participating in the tournament and player auction for 2 Seasons.

This means that players, who will withdraw from an IPL season, despite getting sold at an auction, will be ‘banned’ from playing the cash-rich league for the next two seasons. He won’t be able to register at a players’ auction as well.

Catch all IPL 2025 retention updates below:

This was a long time coming in the IPL as the issue was also discussed in the ‘all IPL owners’ meeting on July 31. Numerous IPL franchises have been negatively impacted by overseas players who unexpectedly withdraw from the tournament shortly before its commencement, often citing personal reasons. These late withdrawals disrupt the teams’ strategies, as they are often built around the inclusion of these international stars. The sudden absence of these players forces the franchises to hastily seek replacements from a limited pool of talent available.