IPL Auction: What Is A Secret Bid?

Here's how a 'Secret Bid' works in an IPL (Indian Premier League) auction.

IPL Auction: The IPL Mega Auction for 2022 is set to take place in Bangalore, where 590 players will go under the hammer and 10 franchises would look to build their perfect team. With only a maximum of four-player retention, teams would have to spend heavily and wisely to build a squad of the required minimum of 18 players. 

David Warner, Jofra Archer and many others are available for the auction and heavy bidding can be expected. With a decided purse amount and spend limit, franchises would have to strategise as to how much can they spend on a player, and if the player goes out of budget what are their backup options.

However, sometimes franchisees think of a player as very crucial to their team combination and end up bidding heavily. 

But, what if a franchise runs out of their purse limit to pursue a player and another franchise matches their last bid? This is where this 'Secret Bid' tiebreaker comes into play. 

What is a 'Secret Bid'?

When a team exhausts its spend limit and makes a final bid for a player, which is then matched by another franchise, 'Secret Bid' comes in. According to this tiebreaker, which was instilled in 2010, both teams would submit their individual bids in a written form, which would be more than the final bidding amount. 

Whichever team bids the higher amount gets the player. However, IPL cleared in a note to franchises that whatever the difference between the normal bidding amount and the secret bid would go to the BCCI and not the player. Moreover, only the former would be deducted from the franchise's auction wallet. 

To make this clear, let's take the help of a fake scenario. If Rajasthan exhausts their purse amount while bidding for Jofra Archer and make the final bid of say 8 crores, which is then matched by another team, say Delhi Capitals. 

Both teams, RR and DC would then submit a secret bid which would be more than the last bid amount. Let's say RR bids 10 crores while DC bids 9.5 crores. Jofra Archer will then be sold to the Rajasthan franchise.

However, the secret bid is more than the last bid, so the difference, which in this case is 2 crores, will not be given to Jofra Archer but to BCCI instead. And only 8 crores will be deducted from Rajasthan's auction wallet since the last bid for the player was 8 crores. 

Since 2010, only three players have been sold via this 'Secret Bid' tiebreaker in the IPL auction. IPL 2010 auction saw a tight tussle for Shane Bond and Kieron Pollard, and these two became the first two players to be sold via secret bid. Bond was sold to KKR while Pollard was acquired by MI and has remained with MI since, winning 5 IPL trophies with the team. Kieron Pollard has been retained for the Mumbai Indians franchise ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction for an amount of 6 crores INR.

The last time this tie-breaker was used was in 2012 when Jadeja returned from a year ban in IPL. He was fought for intensely in the auction and was ultimately acquired by CSK. Jadeja has been a core member of the Chennai Super Kings and was retained at a mammoth amount of 16 crores INR ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction. 

While in the IPL 2022 mega auction, it is highly probable that this tiebreaker can come into effect as all teams would be looking to fill their squad with the maximum limit of 25 players in this era of Covid. It'd be interesting to see if 'Secret Bid' is used for a player in the IPL 2022 Auction.