How to Run a Cricket Auction - Step-by-Step for Local Tournaments

The IPL auction is a spectacle - Rs 25 crore bids, live television, war rooms with spreadsheets. You are not running the IPL. But you can absolutely run a player auction for your colony tournament, corporate league, or city-level competition. And when it is done well, the auction becomes the most talked-about part of the tournament - more than the matches themselves.

This guide covers everything from scratch: how to set up the player pool, how to price players, how to run the live bidding, and how to handle the inevitable drama when two team owners both want the same fast bowler.

Before the Auction: Setup

Step 1: Define the Teams

Decide the number of teams (typically 6-10 for local tournaments) and assign an owner or captain to each team. Each team gets:

Step 2: Build the Player Pool

Every player who is available for auction needs to be in the pool. This is the equivalent of the IPL's registered player list. Collect: player name, phone number, primary role (batter, bowler, all-rounder, wicket-keeper), and any notable stats (previous tournament performances, club level, etc.).

For a local tournament, you might have 80-120 players in the pool for 8 teams of 11. That is a healthy ratio - enough competition for each player without making the auction drag on for hours.

Import the list into your auction platform. Zplys lets you upload player pools via CSV - name, role, and base price. Takes 5 minutes for 100 players.

Step 3: Set Base Prices

Base price is the minimum bid for a player. This is where the auction gets interesting. You have two approaches:

For first-time auctions, tiered pricing works best. It adds strategy for team owners and creates better stories ("He was a Category C pick and went for Rs 8,000!").

Step 4: Create Sets

Players are presented in sets (batches), not individually in random order. Sets group players by role:

Within each set, higher base-price players are presented first. This creates a natural rhythm - intense bidding for marquee players, followed by calculated picks for supporting roles.

Running the Live Auction

The Venue

You need: a room large enough for all team owners plus spectators, a projector or large screen showing the current player and bidding status, a sound system for the auctioneer, and seating arranged so team owners face the screen with bidding paddles visible to the auctioneer.

A community hall, school auditorium, or even a large restaurant private dining room works. The key is visibility - the auctioneer must see every team owner's paddle, and every team owner must see the screen.

The Auctioneer

The auctioneer is the heartbeat of the event. They need to: announce each player with their stats and role, manage the bidding pace (not too fast, not too slow), call out bids clearly, create energy and entertainment, and close the bidding decisively ("Going once... going twice... SOLD to Team Thunder for Rs 7,000!").

The best auctioneers are someone everyone knows and respects - a senior club member, a well-known local player, or someone with genuine stage presence. They do not need training; they need confidence and a sense of drama.

The Bidding Process

If no team bids at the base price, the player goes unsold. Unsold players can be brought back in a later round at a reduced base price.

Timing

A 100-player auction with 8 teams takes 2.5-4 hours. Plan for 3 hours and build in a 15-minute break after Set 3. Players early in the auction go quickly (2-3 minutes each). Players later in the auction may take less than a minute each as teams fill remaining slots.

The Technology: Why You Need Auction Software

Running an auction on paper is technically possible but operationally painful. Here is what goes wrong:

Auction platforms like Zplys handle all of this automatically. The system tracks purse, squad composition, and bidding rules in real time. The auctioneer's screen shows which teams can legally bid on the current player (those with enough purse and squad slots). When a player is sold, the team's purse and squad update instantly on the display.

After the Auction: Squad Announcement

The auction ends. Each team has their squad. Now comes the moment every player is waiting for - the squad announcements.

Display each team's final squad on screen: team name, owner, players (with roles and purchase price), remaining purse, and total squad size. Send squad details via WhatsApp to every player and team owner.

If your platform supports it, export squad sheets as PDFs for each team owner - a clean document showing their full squad, organized by role, with budget spent and remaining.

Common Mistakes to Avoid