The auction preceding the 2021 season of the Indian Premier League will take place on the 18th of February 2021 in Chennai, the BCCI has announced today.

The date and the venue for the auction was announced officially through the IPL’s Twitter handle

?ALERT?: IPL 2021 Player Auction on 18th February?️

Venue ?: Chennai

How excited are you for this year's Player Auction? ??

Set your reminder folks ?️ pic.twitter.com/xCnUDdGJCa

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) January 27, 2021

The Royal Challengers Bangalore will go in with a purse of 35.2 crores, having decided to retain 12 players from the 2020 squad. Meanwhile, Daniel Sams and Harshal Patel have both been traded in from the Delhi Capitals. RCB will have a maximum of 11 slots left to fill during the auction, 3 of which can be overseas players.

RCB currently boast of three batsmen, two wicket-keepers, three all-rounders, and six bowlers in the squad. The auction presents an opportunity for Simon Katich, Mike Hesson, and co to build a strong squad around the retained players, many of whom were pivotal in the team reaching the playoffs in the 2020 season.

RCB’s squad after retentions and trades

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Devdutt Padikkal, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa, Josh Philippe, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pavan Deshpande, Daniel Sams and Harshal Patel.