Rules
There are five ways that a franchise can acquire a player. In the annual auction, buying domestic players, signing uncapped players, through trading and buying replacements.
In the trading window the player can only be traded with his consent. The franchise will have to pay the difference between the old contract price and the new contract price. If the new contract is worth more than the older one then the difference will be shared between the player and the franchise selling the player.
Some of the Team composition rules are:
- Minimum squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.
- No more than 10 foreign players in the squad and at most 4 in the playing XI.
- As this is domestic cricket so minimum of 8 local players must be included in each squad.
- A minimum of 2 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each squad.
Some of the differences to international Twenty20 cricket:
- A difference to international cricket is a timeout. It gives the players an opportunity to strategise and take a drink during the strict 2 minutes, 30 seconds time limit. Each team is awarded two timeouts per innings totalling to four timeouts for the whole game. The teams can take the timeout when instructed, but is necessary to take it at the end of 9th and 16th over.
- IPL is also known for having commercials during the game, hence there is no time limit for teams to complete their innings. However, there may be a penalty if the umpires find teams misusing this privilege at their own choice.
The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5 million. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. The most expensive players in the IPL to date is Gautam Gambhir of India fetched the highest price of $2.4 million from Kolkata Knight Riders at the auction for season 4 .
