What is an Accelerated Round in IPL Auction?

The IPL auctions are always full of drama and intensity. Many players try their luck and hope that they bag a huge deal from a franchise.

But only a handful of them get bids in the initial rounds, while many don’t even get called for the bidding. But there’s still a little hope as they wait for the accelerated round to start.

So what is this accelerated round in the IPL auction? And how does it work?

In this piece, let’s understand the accelerated round conducted in the IPL auction.

Accelerated Round in IPL Auction

See, the IPL auction opens with a set of marquee players. Once the marquee sets are done, the subsequent sets follow, with players of a particular skill set.

For instance, there will be different sets of batters, wicketkeepers, all-rounders, fast bowlers, and spinners. Capped and uncapped players will have their own sets.

Now thousands of players nominate themselves according to their skill set, of which only a few hundred make it to the final auction list. But making it to the final list doesn’t mean every player’s name will come for bidding.

What? Yes, you read that right.

After certain sets are done, the auction starts the accelerated round or accelerated process. To give you an example, let’s see when the accelerated round started in the IPL 2023 auction.

The IPL 2023 auction happened in late December 2022. A total of 405 players made it to the final list, but all of them didn’t go under the hammer.

The 405 players were spread across 43 sets. But only 86 of them from the first 13 sets were called one-by-one for bidding. After that, the auction went into an accelerated process. 

But how does the accelerated round work?

Let’s continue with the above example.

After the completion of the first 13 sets, the IPL Governing Council (IPL GC) asked all 10 franchises to submit a list of players from sets 14 to 43. These selected player’s names were then called for bidding.

But this is not the only accelerated round that takes place. After this process is done, multiple accelerated rounds happen if teams have not filled their minimum slots.

Then, the IPL GC asks the franchises to submit a list of players from all sets that went unsold or were not presented before to go under the hammer again. The accelerated round happens even if there is only one player part of the process.

Now there’s no guarantee that the selected players will find a bidder even in the accelerated round.

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