Some of the IPL’s top stars have told their franchises they will only agree to stay on for the next mega auction if they are paid Rs 40 crore, setting up a retention battle that could reshape how teams are built for the 2028 season.
According to a report in Cricbuzz, at least a couple of top-tier players have conveyed to their respective franchises that they would be willing to stay on only if they are paid that amount. More players could follow suit, particularly those who believe they stand to secure bigger contracts by entering the auction. The identities of the players involved have not been disclosed, and in at least one of the current cases the financial demand is also understood to be linked to the captaincy.
The figure, if it holds, would smash every previous benchmark in the league. The highest amount ever paid for a player at an IPL auction is the Rs 27 crore Lucknow Super Giants spent on Rishabh Pant at the 2025 mega auction, after Pant and Shreyas Iyer both refused retention by their then teams and tested the market. Iyer fetched Rs 26.75 crore from Punjab Kings at the same auction. A Rs 40 crore retention would be nearly 50 per cent higher than Pant’s record deal.
The numbers have to be seen against the size of the purse. Pant’s Rs 27 crore contract came when the total purse stood at Rs 120 crore. For next year’s mega auction, the purse is expected to increase to around Rs 150 crore, going by the pattern of periodic revisions — although no formal discussions have taken place on the matter yet and the figure is not confirmed. At that level, a Rs 40 crore contract would account for a little over a quarter of a franchise’s total purse.
The purse has climbed steadily since the league began. Franchises had Rs 20 crore at their disposal in the inaugural 2008 season, rising to Rs 60 crore in 2014, Rs 80 crore in 2018, Rs 90 crore in 2022 and Rs 120 crore in 2025. It has since increased to Rs 130 crore for the 2027 season, with a further revision to around Rs 150 crore for the next mega auction looking likely.
The final maths will also depend on the BCCI’s retention rules, which have not been announced for the 2028 mega auction. For the previous mega auction, the prescribed slabs were Rs 18 crore, Rs 14 crore and Rs 11 crore, although franchises were allowed to pay players more than the prescribed amounts provided they declared the actual figures — Heinrich Klaasen commanded Rs 23 crore and Nicholas Pooran was paid Rs 21 crore. Under those rules, a franchise retaining five players had Rs 75 crore deducted from its overall purse, irrespective of the individual amounts paid, or the actual amount if it exceeded Rs 75 crore.
There had even been a suggestion ahead of the previous mega auction to do away with retention altogether and rely solely on Right to Match options, so the auction could determine a player’s market value. The idea did not go through — there was a counter-argument that franchises anticipating an RTM option could drive up bidding, and that scrapping retention would be difficult given it has been part of the auction structure since the league’s inception.
For franchises with multiple marquee players to retain, accommodating demands of this size could prove very difficult. The immediate focus remains the IPL 2027 mini-auction — the retention deadline has been extended to November 17 and the auction itself is scheduled for December 16 in Goa — but the Rs 40 crore figure shows that the real test of franchise budgets will come when the next cycle begins.
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