The fifteenth  series of the IPL is scheduled to start in the first week in April 2022 in Chennai.

Sponsors are now Tata who replace Vivo and the tournament now has two new franchises  in Lucknow and Ahmedabad meaning that 74 matches will be played in total through April & May with the IPL final tentatively set for Friday 3rd June 2022.

First though we have the IPL Mega Auction taking place in Bengaluru over two days starting Saturday 12th February when the big ticket action takes place with the top stars coming in for bidding.

A total of 590 players will by auctioned in the event with  370 being Indian and 220 coming from overseas.  The breakdown of capped players is 228 while conversely there will be 355 uncapped players plus  7 players from Associate nation players.

All franchises can have a maximum of 25 players in their squad of  which only 8 can be from overseas . Each team can only play 4 overseas players in any one match

With 33 players already been retained by the franchises  the auction will commence with  categories for both Indian and Overseas players in base rate sections at  2 , 1.5 and 1 Crore.

Past  signings  such  as  Chris Morris , Yuvraj Singh ,Pat Cummins and Ben Stokes have reached over 14.50 Crore which equates to 2million $.

Looking at the franchises individually  IPL 2021 winners CSK who have retained  MS Dhoni , Moeen Ali , Ravi Jadeja  and opener Ruturaj Gaekwad  will possibly look to buy back South African Faf  Du Plessis who was extremely successful last season at the top of the order with Gaekwad . Other overseas batting targets could be  Englishman Dawad Malan  who although was not used a lot by Punjab Kings last term has recently been ranked as one of the best t20 batters in world cricket.

Last seasons losing finalists have lost captain Morgan as well as premier bowler and current Aussie test captain Pat Cummins . It would be no surprise to see them bid high for a trump card bowler in Boult , Rabada or Shami while the batting middle order could be boosted with the likes of  Indian batting starlets in Ishan Kishan  and Shreyas Iyer.

Delhi Capitals had a star studded team last term but losing Ravi Ashwin and Kagisa Rabada is a big hole in their bowling options although it wont surprise if  either Aaron Finch or Mitch Marsh  joins coach Ricky Ponting in Delhi.

Of  the new franchises , KL Rahul  vacates Punjab to  skipper  Lucknow Super Giants  who under coach Andy Flower have retained  Aussie all rounder Marcus Stoinis as well as young recent chosen at white ball international honors Ravi Bishnoi who bowled superb mystery spin for Punjab Kings last term .  It wont surprise many if  Lucknow bid for a marquee signing like David Warner recently released after a long spell for the Sunrisers to open the batting with KL Rahul .

Ahmedabad Titans are the other new franchise in IPL 2022 who will be captained by Hardik Pandya and coached by former Indian seam bowler Ashish Nehra.   Pandya was hugely successful for Mumbai Indians in the middle order where he won the title on four occasions.  The Titans have acquired  premier white ball mystery spinner Rashid Khan  and young  former KKR  opening batsman Shubhman Gil .

The excitement of the auction being shown Live on Star Sports and a live-stream on Disney + Hotstar  it will be interesting to see which  teams get the star players and how the outright betting market is formed in reaction to the squads .  We  will review next week and consider who might be added to the roll of honor as IPL Champions 2022 in this edition