Bangalore: 
At the big IPL bazaar, 144 players from 11 countries are going under the hammer, one by one, being bid for one by one for serious money. It's the Indian Premier League auction for season 5 being held in Bangalore today. Here are 10 facts you must know about today's auction:
1) Saturday began dramatically. And the drama was all outside the auction room. Sahara India has withdrawn from the auction and says it wants to offload its Pune Warriors team. Sahara has, in fact dissociated from all cricket administered by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Sahara talks of much disillusionment, but the immediate trigger was not being allowed an increase in their purse to replace their indisposed marquee player Yuvraj Singh.
2) Each team can spend up to $2 million at the auction. However, teams that have retained their replacement players from last season will have their budget reduced by the same amount as the value of their contract with that player. For example; Pune Warriors re-signed Sourav Ganguly for $400,000, last month, so they only have a purse of $1.6 million for the auction. Not enough to buy a player to replace Yuvraj for the season - to give some context, Ravindra Jadeja has just been sold for $ 2 million to Chennai Super Kings at today's auction. Which means that CSK have blown up all their money today on Jadeja.
3) There are a total of 8 Indian players in the auction. These include VVS Laxman, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Ravindra Jadeja, Ramesh Powar, Parthiv Patel, Vinay Kumar and VRV Singh.
4) The allowed squad size for each team has been increased from 30 to 33, with 11 foreign players per squad, up one from the previous limit of 10. However, the number of foreign players that can be part of the final XI remains four.
5) England spinner Graeme Swann has the highest base price at $400,000 for the auction.
6) The Kochi Tuskers Kerala IPL franchise was terminated in September 2011 by the BCCI for breaching its terms of agreement, hence many cricketers, such as the much-wanted and first-sold Ravindra Jadeja and Mahela Jayawardene, from that franchise, are on the auction list.
7) With Kochi now disallowed, should any of the Kochi players fail to attract a bid, their salaries will be covered by the IPL through the franchise's bank guarantee worth Rs. 156 crores that has been encashed by the BCCI.
8) Former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood has been included in the auction list; he has been listed as a player from England, a country he has qualified to play for.
9) If there is a tie in the bids, the IPL relies on a tie-breaker to decide who gets the player. The franchises that have submitted the maximum bid must then submit a blind cheque to the BCCI. The franchise that provides the biggest cheque gets to keep the player. The money, which is undisclosed, goes to the BCCI and does not count against the salary cap.
10) The auction is being conducted by Richard Madley, a professional auctioneer from England, who has conducted each of the previous IPL player auctions.
