Ahead of the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League, a mini-auction will take place in Chennai on Thursday. The event is quite popular among fans, as they get to see their favourite players go under the hammer. 

Traditionally, an IPL season starts in April. However, last year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the event was postponed and had started in September. In light of the COVID restrictions across the nation, IPL 2020 was held in UAE. 

With restrictions lifted and the vaccination drive on, the IPL is going to be held in India again in 2021. It is also likely to witness the attendance of fans.

Also Read | IPL 2021: Money left in each team’s purse ahead of mini auction

The IPL auction will be televised on Star Sports Network from 3 pm. The venue of the auction is Chennai, where 292 players on the auction list will ‘go under the hammer’. Among the 292 players, 164 are Indian players and 125 are foreign players. Three players are from the associate nations.

Besides being televised on Star Sports Network, the auction will also be live-streamed on Hotstar. Rs 2 crore is the highest reserved price. Two Indian players – Harbhajan Singh and Kedar Jadhav – and eight overseas players – Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Shakib Al Hasan, Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Liam Plunkett, Jason Roy and Mark Wood have been put in the highest reserve price category.

The registration of players had ended on February 4. More than 1000 players had initially registered for IPL auction 2021.