Major stakes at a mini-IPL Auction

A mini-auction is ideally meant to fine-tune a strategy crafted around the mega auction for the next three seasons.

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Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings may well be strategising for the next two seasons rather than merely fine-tuning their plans. (BCCI)

Historically, and in practice, that's how franchises have approached the two auctions - mega and mini. But come to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday (December 16), and see if there's anything truly ‘mini’ about it. At least for a couple of franchises, the stakes could be anything but small.Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings may well be strategising for the next two seasons rather than merely fine-tuning their plans. One team - KKR - in fact will head into the Abu Dhabi auction with a larger purse - of INR 64.30 crore - than what they carried to last year's mega auction. They had INR 51 crore for the Jeddah shoppings.

It's not much different for the Chennai Super Kings either. They will enter Abu Dhabi with INR 43.40 crore - an amount not far off removed from what they had for last year's 'mega’ purchases in Jeddah, where they carried around INR 55 crore. While the other eight franchises are generally better positioned in terms of squad composition, the situations with KKR and CSK are not exactly unique.

It is, of course, not a rare phenomenon in the IPL - teams are known to overhaul their squads ahead of the mini auctions. Franchises like Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals have, on occasions, looked to build - or rather rebuild - their sides after disappointing outcomes from their mega-auction purchases.