IPL 2017: No ‘right to match’ card in auction may put franchises in a fix

Franchises may have to rework their budgets and lists as they won’t have ‘right to match’ card in the IPL auction this time.

Franchises won’t have the provision of using the ‘right to match’ card in the IPL auction in Bengaluru on Monday, according to an official in the know of things.

KKR had used the ‘right to match’ card to buy back Yusuf Pathan at a much lesser price in the 2014 IPL auction. The ‘right to match’ card option won’t be available to IPL franchises in the 2017 auction to be held in Bengaluru on Monday. (Getty Images)

If the ‘right to match’ card isn’t used, plans of some franchises, especially those who had released most of their players, may go for a toss.

Franchises release players and use the card (given according to the number of players released by the team) to buy whoever they want to bring back, hopefully by paying less than what they had shelled out earlier.

A typical example is how Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bought back Yusuf Pathan in the 2014 auction for just R 3.25 crore, almost R 9 crore less than what they had paid in 2011. All the franchises need to do is to match the highest bid for that player.

If there is no ‘right to match’ card available, franchises will be forced to rework their ‘player allocation’. Every franchise has a list of players they want to go after.

Normally, franchises allocate less for the players they want to buy back, hoping there won’t be too much bidding on them. In the absence of the ‘right to match’ option, franchises can’t take that player for granted and leave it till late.

This looks to work in favour of franchises which have retained most players. With 20 players, Mumbai Indians look settled with a tried and tested core and they might anyway bid for a handful of players. The Knight Riders, on the other hand, have retained only 14 players so they might have to adjust their budget if they want to buy back one or two players.