Owner's Guide · Season 2026–27

Auction
Rules

Everything you need to know before you raise your paddle.

Your Team at a Glance

You own one of four franchises. Here is what you are working with:

Your purse	₹100 Cr (virtual money)
Your squad	Exactly 15 players
From each category	Exactly 3 — no more, no less
Women in your squad	Minimum 4 of your 12 adult players
Men in your squad	Maximum 8 of your 12 adult players
Juniors	Exactly 3 — gender doesn't matter

Three of those 15 slots are filled before the auction even starts — you, your Captain and your Vice-Captain. The other 12 you win on the floor.

✓ Every player gets a team

There are exactly 60 players and exactly 60 squad slots. Nobody goes unsold, and there is no recall round. Every registered player walks out with a franchise.

You Are Also a Player

All four owners are registered players and will play this season. You are reserved to your own team automatically before the auction, charged at your own category's base price:

Cat DRohit Bajaj₹1 Cr

Cat CPankaj Choraria₹3 Cr

Cat BAnkit Nevatia₹4 Cr

Cat BArpit Saraf₹4 Cr

You do not bid for yourself, and you cannot decline the reservation. It comes out of your ₹100 Cr before anything else, and it uses one slot in your category.

Picking Your Captain & Vice-Captain

Before the auction you choose two players directly — no bidding. This happens live in the owners' group at a time we announce in advance.

The rules for your picks

Your Captain must be male. Your Vice-Captain must be female.
You, your Captain and your Vice-Captain must come from three different categories. If you are Category B, neither pick may be Category B.
Both picks cost DOUBLE that player's base price — see the table in Section 4.
Each pick uses up one of your 3 slots in that category. If your Captain is Category A, you may buy only 2 more Category A players at the auction.

How the picking window works

We announce the time

Date and time are shared with all four owners in advance. Be online and ready.

The list is posted

At that time — not before — the full player list goes into the group.

You post your pick

First valid message claiming a player wins that player. Order is decided by the order messages appear in the group.

You get a FROZEN reply

The Finance Manager confirms each valid pick. Nothing is yours until that reply appears.

If two owners claim the same player, the earlier message wins. The other owner picks again, judged from the time of the new message.
A pick that breaks a rule — wrong gender, a category you have already used, or a player already frozen — is rejected and must be re-sent. It does not hold your place in the queue.
Both your picks must be frozen before the window closes. If you have not picked by then, the Finance Manager assigns you the highest-ranked eligible player still available.

⚠ Read this before the window opens

Group timestamps only show the minute, so two picks seconds apart can look identical. The order messages appear in the group is what counts, and the Finance Manager's FROZEN reply is the record. Please accept this in advance — it is the one thing most likely to cause a dispute on the day.

The Player Pool

60 players across five categories, 12 in each. Categories were set from the skill levels everyone entered on the registration form, ranked within gender so no category is all-male or all-female.

Cat.	Category	Base	Pre-pick (2×)	Max bid (3×)
A	Elite All-Rounders	₹6 Cr	₹12 Cr	₹18 Cr
B	Strong Players	₹4 Cr	₹8 Cr	₹12 Cr
C	Regular Players	₹3 Cr	₹6 Cr	₹9 Cr
D	Fun / Family Players	₹1 Cr	₹2 Cr	₹3 Cr
J	Junior / Youth (under 18)	₹1 Cr	₹2 Cr	₹3 Cr

Base price is where bidding starts. Pre-pick is what your Captain or Vice-Captain costs you. Max bid is the ceiling — no player can sell for more than that.

Your Kitty — What You Actually Have to Bid With

₹100 Cr is not your bidding budget. Once you, your Captain and your Vice-Captain are paid for, what remains is your kitty. Fill this in the moment your picks are frozen.

Team / Owner	Owner (1×)	Captain (2×)	Vice-Capt (2×)	Kitty left
Rohit Bajaj (Cat D)	₹1 Cr	Cat __ ₹____	Cat __ ₹____	₹________
Pankaj Choraria (Cat C)	₹3 Cr	Cat __ ₹____	Cat __ ₹____	₹________
Ankit Nevatia (Cat B)	₹4 Cr	Cat __ ₹____	Cat __ ₹____	₹________
Arpit Saraf (Cat B)	₹4 Cr	Cat __ ₹____	Cat __ ₹____	₹________

The three numbers to keep in your head

Kitty

₹100 Cr − your base price − (2× Captain base) − (2× Vice-Captain base).

Minimum

₹45 Cr − the base prices of you, your Captain and your Vice-Captain. This is what your remaining 12 players cost if you win every one of them at base price.

Spare

Kitty − Minimum. This is your real fighting money — the number to watch all evening.

✓ You will have roughly ₹45–₹51 Cr to fight with

However you pick, you walk in with about ₹45–₹51 Cr of genuinely spare money. Taking an elite Category A Captain costs you only around ₹5 Cr of that spare — not ₹12 Cr — because a cheaper Captain leaves you a more expensive squad still to buy. The choice is closer than it looks.

What Your Squad Must Look Like

Two requirements, both enforced live. The board at the front of the room shows your position after every single sale.

Three from every category

Exactly 3 players from each of A, B, C, D and J. Not two, not four. Your owner reservation and your two pre-picks already count toward this, so your auction shopping list is 12 players in fixed proportions.

Example: if you are Category B, your Captain is Category A and your Vice-Captain is Category C, then at the auction you may buy exactly 2 A, 2 B, 2 C, 3 D and 3 J.

At least four women

Of your 12 adult players (Categories A–D): at least 4 must be women. Most teams will end up with 5, because there are 20 women to share across the four squads.
Your 3 juniors have no gender requirement — pick whoever you want.
Your owner reservation is male and your Vice-Captain is female, so your Vice-Captain already covers one of your four.

⚠ Watch your women count all evening

This is the single easiest way to get stuck. If you spend the early rounds buying men, you can reach a point where you still need women but have too few adult slots left — and the Finance Manager will start blocking your bids. There are 20 women across the four teams against a minimum of 16, so the slack is small. The board shows your women-still-needed number at all times. Keep an eye on it from the first lot, not the last.

How the Auction Runs

Roughly two minutes per player, 48 lots, about 75–100 minutes in total.

Announce

“Player number 21 — [name].” The player comes forward.

Profile

Their profile is shown on screen for 20–30 seconds.

Base price

The auctioneer opens the floor: “Who starts?”

Bidding

Raise your paddle. 60 seconds of active bidding, 2 minutes maximum per player.

Going, going, gone

“Going once — going twice — SOLD!”

Update

The board updates your purse, your slots and your gender count.

How much to raise

Current bid	You raise by
₹1 Cr – ₹10 Cr	₹0.5 Cr (50 Lakh)
Above ₹10 Cr	₹1 Cr

Every player starts below ₹10 Cr, so bidding opens in 50-Lakh steps. Only a serious fight climbs past ₹10 Cr and moves to ₹1 Cr jumps.

The ceiling

No player sells for more than 3× their base price — ₹18 Cr for Category A, ₹12 Cr for B, ₹9 Cr for C, ₹3 Cr for D and J. Once the ceiling is reached the auctioneer stops the bidding and the last bidder wins.

If two paddles go up together

The auctioneer takes one paddle at a time in the order raised, and will invite the other owner to counter: “Team A first — Team B, do you counter?” If it is a genuine dead heat that nobody can call, it is settled with an open coin flip. The winner takes the player at the current bid, and there is no further bidding.

When Your Bid Will Be Blocked

The Finance Manager checks every bid before confirming it. Your bid will be refused if any of these is true — the board shows the reason on screen, so there is no argument:

Your 3 slots in that category are already full.
The bid is above that category's ceiling.
You do not have the purse for it.
Paying it would leave you unable to fill your remaining slots at base price — you must always keep back ₹1 Cr per empty slot.
You already have 8 men, and the player is a man.
Buying this player would make it impossible for you to still reach 4 women with the slots you have left.

✓ This protects you

These checks are not there to restrict your strategy — they exist so that no owner can accidentally spend or buy their way into a squad that cannot legally be completed. Everything you are allowed to do, you are free to do.

Your Checklist

Be online at the announced time for the Captain and Vice-Captain window.
Know your category, and remember your two picks must be from two other categories.
Post your pick in the group and wait for the FROZEN reply before assuming it is yours.
Fill in your kitty (Section 5) as soon as your picks are confirmed — know your spare number before you walk in.
At the auction, watch two things on the board: your spare money, and your women-still-needed count.
Plan for 3 players in every category. You cannot load up on one tier.

Good luck —
see you at the auction

Season kicks off September 2026