IPL Players' draft: Pune to pick MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina to Rajkot?

New Delhi: The two new Indian Premier League franchises based in Pune and Rajkot will choose ten players in the Players' draft on December 15 in Mumbai.

Mumbai Cricket Association's clubhouse in the Bandra-Kurla Complex will host the draft, which will commence at 12:15 pm.

With Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals suspended for a period of two years, Keshav Bansal's Intex Group and the Sanjeev Goenka-owned New Rising consortium will have access to all the star players from the two tainted franchises.

Some of the cricketers that will be on the priority list of the two new teams are as follows:

CSK: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Mohit Sharma,Faf du Plessis, Ashish Nehra

RR: Ajinkya Rahane, Shane Watson, Steven Smith, Sanju Samson, Karun Nair, Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny

IPL Players' draft

Pune will be given the choice to pick the players first because they were the lowest bidders (negative bids) to buy the new team for two years

The cricketers from the two suspended franchises will be divided into two groups of capped and uncapped and ten players will be sold through the draft system. The two new teams will have a minimum of Rs 40 crore and a maximum of Rs 66 crore to buy players.

The franchises, which choose the first two players in the draft -- in which one player each will be put up to be chosen alternately -- will have to shell out Rs 12.5 crore.

As per the tender, the first capped player would be paid 12.5 crore while the remaining four capped players are to get Rs 9.5 crore, Rs 7.5 crore, Rs 5.5 crore, and Rs 4 crore respectively. Uncapped players can be picked for a stipulated fee of Rs 4 crore.

The main player auction for unpicked players and others will be held on February 6 in Bengaluru.

(With Agency inputs)