The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in India usually contested by eight teams representing eight different cities or states in India. The league was founded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007 and is the most-attended cricket league in the world.With a large fan following and audience, the teams try to bring in the best players across the world to play in the league. These players are up for auction and the highest bidding team gets the player. Every year, new players are drawn in from different countries based on their performance and credentials. The most expensive players of  this season are Chris Morris (Rs 16.25 crore), Kyle Jamieson (Rs 15 crore), Glenn Maxwell (Rs 14.25 crore), Jhye Richardson (Rs 14 crore), Krishnappa Gowtham (Rs 9.25 crore) The new buys this year include Steve Smith, Sam Billings, Umesh Yadav, Ripal Patel, Curran and Lukman Meriwala. 

Player Acquisition Rules 

Teams can acquire players through the annual player auction, trading players with other teams or signing replacements for unavailable players. Usually, each player signs up for the auction stating their base price and then plays for the team that bids the highest. In the trading windows, a player can only be traded with his consent,  but players cannot be traded outside the trading windows or during the tournament. The team strength must be between 18 to 25 players with a cap limit of 8 players. Salary cap of the entire squad must not exceed ₹850 million. And under-19 players cannot be picked unless they have previously played List A cricket.

Each player has a one year contract and is paid the annual amount by the franchise. The franchise can extend the contract by one or two years. Prior to the 2014 season, Indian domestic players were not included in the player auction pool however due to legal and moral codes of the league, it was decided to include domestic players in the player auction.