While Team India is currently in Bangladesh and is gearing up for the second Test in Dhaka, cricket fans in India are also waiting with bated breath for the Indian Premier League (IPL) Auction 2023. The bidding war is set to happen on December 23 in Kochi this year. As per the official player list announced by the IPL, there are a total of 405 players that will go under the hammer this time around which includes a total of 132 overseas players.
It is worth highlighting that 991 players had shown an interest to play in the IPL but the teams initially selected 369 names after which they requested an additional 36 players. The final list has 282 uncapped cricketers, with four of those coming from the associate nations.
Interestingly, a maximum of 87 slots are up for grabs this year with an upper limit of 30 for overseas players. With not much time left for the auctions, franchises would have already prepared which direction they would want to go at the auctions or the list of players who they want to go after.
Notably, the player himself is given the right to decide his price bracket and a total of 19 players, all overseas, have registered themselves under the same.
15-year-old will go under the hammer on December 23
Among the 405 cricketers who will be auctioned, it is Afghanistan’s Allah Ghazanfar who is the youngest and could be picked by some franchise. The 15-year and 15y 159days old is an off-spinner who does not have much experience, having played just 3 T20s so far, but has managed to impress a few teams which is the reason his name features on the list. Ghazanfar plies his trade for Mis Ainak Knights in the Shpageeza Cricket League and the bidding will start for the 6 ft 2 inches tall bowler at INR 20 lakhs.
Oldest player to be auctioned is an IPL veteran
While not many would be aware of Ghazanfar who is the youngest in the auction pool, the oldest player at this year’s auction is a popular name in Amit Mishra. The leg-spinner has taken not 1 but 3 hat-tricks in the tournament and it would be interesting to see if he gets a buyer for the upcoming season, aged 40 years and 27 days as of today. Mishra’s stats do speak for him and last played a T20 game in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Haryana.