There are five ways that a franchise can acquire a player. In the
annual auction, buying domestic players, signing uncapped players,
through trading and buying replacements.
[20][21]
In the trading window the player can only be traded with his consent.
The franchise will have to pay the difference between the old contract
price and the new contract price. If the new contract is worth more than
the older one then the difference will be shared between the player and
the franchise selling the player.
[22]
Some of the Team composition rules are:
- Minimum squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.
- No more than 11 foreign players in the squad and maximum 4 foreign players should be in the playing eleven.
- Minimum of 14 Indian players must be included in each squad.
- A minimum of 6 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each squad.
Some of the differences to international Twenty20 cricket:
- A difference to international cricket is a timeout. It gives the
players an opportunity to strategise and take a drink during the strict 1
minutes, 30 seconds time limit. Each team is awarded two timeouts per
innings totalling to four timeouts for the whole game. The teams can
take the timeout when instructed, but is necessary to take it from 6th
to 9th and 13th to 16th over.
- IPL is also known for having commercials during the game, hence
there is no time limit for teams to complete their innings. However,
there may be a penalty if the umpires find teams misusing this privilege
at their own choice.
The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction
was US $5 million. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum
annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. The most
expensive players in the IPL to date is Gautam Gambhir of India fetched
the highest price of $2.4 million from Kolkata Knight Riders at the
auction for season 4