Sony Six to telecast IPL 2016 player auction live on February 6

Mumbai: The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 player's auction will be telecast live by sports and entertainment channel Sony SIX on February 6.

The auction, which will be held in Bengaluru on Saturday, will be aired live both on Sony SIX and Sony SIX HD from 9 am onwards.

Apart from last edition's most expensive players, Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik, other impressive names at the auction table will include Irfan Pathan, Kane Richardson, Michael Hussey, Ishant Sharma, and Mohit Sharma.

The auction will also see the inclusion of two new teams, Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions, who will be bidding to build their teams for the first time.

As many as 100 cricketers including 36 overseas players have been retained by the franchises for the 2016 season. Viewers will get to witness the franchises bidding from a pool of 351 cricketers, including 230 from India at the auction.

For the ninth season, the franchises have a salary purse of Rs.66 crore each which is a Rs.3 crore jump from last season's purse with a balance sum of Rs.198.28 crores remaining with the eight franchises.

The auction will be led by Richard Madley, a professional auctioneer from England who has been shepherding the player auctions since its inception in 2008.

"The IPL is the biggest T20 cricket league in the world with top Indian and International names in cricket participating in this tournament. The player auction always sets the tone for the tournament and 2016 will surely be more exciting with two new teams fiercely bidding to build their player line-up," Prasana Krishnan, business head, sports cluster, Sony Pictures networks India said in a release on Wednesday.