Auctions for the new season were held in May, before which the existing teams were allowed to retain one player each. The auction saw over 400 players go under the hammer and a total of Rs 46.99 crore spent by the 12 teams.
The most expensive pick of the auction was raider Nitin Tomar, who was bought by the new UP franchise for a sum of Rs 93 lakh.[1] Following in second place was Rohit Kumar after the Bengaluru Bulls picked him for a Rs 81 lakh price. The most expensive foreign player was South Korea's Jang Kun Lee after he was retained by the Bengal Warriors for Rs 80.3 lakhs.
The opening ceremony is held on the first match of every leg in each stadium.[citation needed] This is similar to that of IPL 2017.[citation needed] It is done so to highlight the importance of the tradition and culture all over the country.[citation needed]
The 12 teams are divided into two zones of six each. Each team plays a total of 22 matches in the league stage:
1. Teams from the same zone play each other thrice, totalling 15 matches in the zone.
2. Then, a team will play an additional of 6 matches with the teams from the other zone.
(Each team plays other team from the other zone once).
These 6 inter-zone matches for each team will be held on three different weeks.
These weeks are known as inter-zone challenge weeks and the respective weeks are:
1st: 15 August – 20 August
2nd: 5 September – 10 September
3rd: 26 September – 1 October
3. Then, each team plays one wild card match which is an additional inter-zone match in the penultimate week, selected by a random mid-season draw, totalling 22 matches in the league stage.
The top three teams from each zone qualify for the super playoffs and compete for the title.
The teams are divided into two zones with each zone having six teams based on their geographical proximity. Each team will play 15 intra-zonal matches and 7 inter-zonal matches. Zone A
Pardeep Narwal (369)