Kings XI Punjab could find themselves in trouble due to spending guidelines of BCCI for the upcming auction. According to a report by InsideSport, BCCI has ordered IPL franchises to spend at least 75% of their total purse amount in the upcoming auction on February 18.
Every IPL franchise had a total amount of INR 85 crores to start with. Whatever amount is left after the retention process is every team’s respective purse amount for the mini-auction. Since the directive says that every franchise has to spend a minimum of 75% of the total amount, each franchise has to spend a minimum of total INR 63.75 Cr on buying and retaining players. If any franchise fails to reach this mark, BCCI will take the deficit as a penalty.
While this rule might not affect the other teams massively, KXIP’s big purse is in danger. After retaining 16 players for just Rs 31.8 Crores, Punjab has Rs 53.2 Crores remaining in the purse. To reach the mandated amount of INR 63.75 Crores, the management needs to spend a whopping Rs 31.95 Crores during the auction. Moreover, they will have to spend this amount on acquiring 9 or fewer players since squads can have at most 25 players.
The best-case scenario for KXIP right now is to make some big signings as they did in 2020 by acquiring Glenn Maxwell for Rs 10.75 Crores and Sheldon Cottrell for Rs 8.5 Crores, both of whom were surprisingly released ahead of the 2021 auction. Since this is a mini-auction and the next one is likely to a mega-auction with most players back in the pool, every franchise would have wanted to purchase the minimum number of players possible. Since KXIP can’t do that without losing a lot of money to BCCI, big signings are expected from the team on February 18.