IPL Auction 2025: Of high bids and inflated price tags

IPL 2025 auction sees record-breaking bids, highlighting the growing value of players in the quest for victory.

For the franchises, it’s about struggling to come up with the most suitable combination in quest of the glittering trophy.

But for a majority of the fans, the Indian Premier League’s annual money-spinning gala – the player auction – is mostly about following the price tags.

While the debate over the most balanced squad will continue till the IPL 2025 starts next year, the anticipation of the auction being the grandest in terms of price tags came true over the two days at the Abadi Al Johar Arena.

It wasn’t only about Rishabh Pant (₹27 crore) and Shreyas Iyer (₹26.75 crore) fetching the two highest bids ever but even the number of successful ₹10 crore-plus bids have nearly doubled from the last auction.

In Jeddah, a whopping 21 players fetched a price equal to or higher than ₹10 crore. During the last big auction in 2022 in Bengaluru, the number was 11.

The fact that the auction purse went up from ₹90 crore to ₹120 crore from 2022 to 2025 played a role. But the bids going through the roof also signified that the demands made by certain cricketers before entering the auction were not unjust.

It is understood that the player pool became the most high-profile this time around due to certain franchises feeling a few players were demanding an amount that was way above their market price. But once the players threw their hat into the auction ring, the values just soared higher than anticipated.