In the auctions held in other seasons of IPL, it is usually seen that IPL teams prefer foreign players and buy foreign players for huge amounts, but we did not see anything like that in the auctions of this season of IPL. There has been a lot of emphasis on domestic players in this season and teams have been trying to sign domestic players with huge sums of money. Teams have tried to retain good players in the past but those who could not be retained have been re-purchased in the auction at high prices. Rishabh Pant Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer these three batsmen really did not think that the value would be so high. Most likely Rishabh Pant will be the most valuable player in this IPL.
There seems to be some sort of directive from the BCCI to the franchises to focus more on domestic players. Else how can you justify
Yuzvendra Chahal and Arshdeep Singh selling for ₹180 million each, while Lungi Ngidi and Brydon Carse going for just ₹10 million? If this trend persists, then foreign players may pull out of the IPL and focus on other leagues such as the BBL and the Hundred. Also, there seems to be price-fixing by the franchises. We saw that in the case of Will Jacks.
In other seasons of IPL, various teams would go to great lengths to recruit foreign players and each player would be sold at a very high price, but this IPL auction is probably the first where foreign players are not valued much and domestic cricketers are bought for a lot of money. There may be something like the possibility you mentioned as foreign players come to India for months to play IPL but if their remuneration is not to their liking then there may be many big stars withdrawing from the next seasons and showing interest to play BBL. I am not talking about buying at a high price, but the player who is bought at a price that will benefit both parties should be bought with that amount of money, whether it is a domestic or foreign player.
In IPL, I have seen from the beginning that domestic players are valued more than foreign players. And there is a good reason for this. Because Indian cricketers cannot play in any foreign franchise leagues, which is why they are always valued more. This is a strategy of their country's cricket board, maybe they have tried to keep their cricket attractive. That is why I am not too worried about it.
If the remuneration is reduced further this year from the previous years, then I think the attraction of foreign players towards IPL will decrease, which will not bring any positive message for IPL in the long term. There are many cricketers who retire very early from the national team to play in this tournament and if they do not get the appreciation accordingly, then gradually the attraction towards IPL will decrease.
