All about IPL Auction 2016: Two new teams in bidding slugfest with established franchises

IPL 2016 auction will be held on Saturday at ITC Gardenia, Bangalore.

New Delhi: It's that time of the year again when cricket fans shed their nationalistic carousels and seek new alliances with players known-unknown and teams based on cities and franchises even as the sport itself braces up for yet another brilliant edition.

That's Indian Premier League Players's Auction. Here's everything you need to know about the world's premier Twenty20 cricket league, from TV listing, to players, and the available purse.

The IPL auction, which will decide which franchise gets which player, will be held on Saturday at Bangalore. And here's everything you need to know about the all-important event.

First thing first, after the suspension of both the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR), the organisers of the cash-rich league -- the all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) -- roped in two new franchises, albeit for two years, so that the tournament continues to be a eight-team affair, and keep the format alive.

Those two new teams are Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) and Gujarat Lions (GL) and both the teams got their bases covered from the from players' pool of the suspended franchises through the Players' Draft, which was held last December.

RPS have got the services of Mahendra Singh Dhoni while GL have roped in T20 specialist Suresh Raina. Besides the two mercurial players, the teams also shared other eight players from the draft with Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis joining MS Dhoni in the Pune-based franchise, while Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, James Faulkner and Dwayne Bravo heading Rajkot's way.

These two teams will look to strengthened their respective squads with some intelligent bidding tomorrow. And many believed that their respective owners have done the due diligence, because they can't just plunge into IPL and hope miracles work. That never happened. And both Sanjiv Goenka (SPS) and Keshav Bansal (GL) knows it too!

Other teams are Delhi Daredevils, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians (defending champions), Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

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IPL Auction 2016 Date & Place: February 6, at ITC Gardenia, Bangalore

Time: 9:30 AM IST

TV Channel: Sony Six

Live Streaming: Starsports.com

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Like in the previous editions, the IPL 9 will also have huge pool of talented players. And these eight teams will fight it out to have the best of the best. But teams have also announced their respective list of retained players. Some of the biggest names in cricket Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Rohit Sharma, Keiron Pollard etc, have been retained by their respective teams.

But still, the availability of players like Yuvraj Singh, Shane Watson, Kevin Pietersen, Ishant Sharma, Sanju Samson, Dale Steyn, Kane Richardson, Mitchell Marsh, Martin Guptill, etc. will keep the bidding affairs relevant for the teams. But the real fight will be on the rights to earn the marquee players.

And the player pool is huge: 351, of those 230 are Indians.

Each team is allowed to spent INR 66 crores.

Here's the list of budget remaining for each team (in INR):

1. Delhi Daredevils (DD) - Rs 37.15 crore 2. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) - Rs 30.15 crore 3. Gujarat Lions (GL) - Rs 27 crore 4. Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) - Rs 27 crore 5. Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) - Rs 23 crore 6. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) - Rs 21.625 crore 7. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) - Rs 17.95 crore 8. Mumbai Indians (MI) - Rs 14.405 crore

​The tournament is scheduled to be played between 8 April and 29 May 2016.