AS MANY as 126 players will go under the hammer at the Vidarbha Premier League (VPL) Season 2 Players’ Auction to be held on May 3. The auction will be conducted by renowned Presenter Charu Sharma. The first half of the auction will be beamed live on Sony TEN 5 channel from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. Besides these players, 32 of Vidarbha’s top players have been retained by the six Franchises. The franchises were given the option of retaining a maximum of six players --- two from each of the three categories (A, B, & C) set by the VCA -- from their last season’s roster. Defending champions NECO Master Blaster and last year’s finalists, Pagariya Strikers both retained six players each, while Bharat Rangers, Orange Tigers, India Warriors (previously Nagpur Titans) and Nagpur Heroz chose to retain 5 each. Of the 126 players in the auction pool, there are nine marquee players in Category A with a base price of Rs 2.5 lakh. It includes big names like Umesh Yadav, Harsh Dubey, Praful Hinge, Dhruv Shorey, Ravikumar Samarth, Darshan Nalkande, Nachiket Bhute, Dipesh Parwani and Mandar Mahale. Category B, which has a base price of Rs 1.5 lakh, includes 43 players, while Category C has 74 players with a base price of Rs one lakh. Each franchise is entitled to an auction purse of Rs 42 lakh to build a minimum 15-team roster (including retentions). The maximum each franchise can spend on retentions is Rs 17 lakh. Franchises that retained only five players will have the remaining retention fee added to their auction purse of Rs 25 lakh. This is the first time the VPL will conduct a Players’ Auction for the men’s tournament. The VPL has also added one team (Pagariya Strikers) in the women’s tournament which will be played simultaneously from June 1-14. There will be no auction of women players this season.