A Cricket Auction Rules Template

Most auction arguments are not about money. They are about a rule nobody agreed on, discovered at the worst possible moment, in front of everyone.

What follows is a template. Read it, change what does not suit your tournament, and send it to every owner before the night. Ten minutes of agreement beforehand replaces an hour of argument during.

The template

Auction rules: [tournament name]

1. Budget. Each team has [amount] to spend. Every team has the same budget. Unspent money is not carried anywhere and has no value after the auction.

2. Squad size. Each team must end with at least [minimum] players and may have at most [maximum].

3. Base price. Every player starts at [amount]. Players in [category] start at [amount]. The first team to bid buys the player at that price; there is no bid below it.

4. Increments. Bids rise by [step] up to [amount], then by [step] up to [amount], then by [step].

5. Who may bid. One nominated person per team. Their bid is final and binding on the team. Substitutions of that person must be agreed with the organizer before the auction starts.

6. Recognising a bid. A bid counts when the auctioneer acknowledges it. If two bids arrive together the auctioneer decides which was first, and that decision is final.

7. Withdrawing a bid. A bid cannot be withdrawn. A bid entered in error may be corrected by the organizer before the player is sold, and only then.

8. Sold. A player is sold when the auctioneer calls it. The price is deducted from the team's budget immediately.

9. Unsold players. Players who attract no bid are unsold. All unsold players will be brought back [at the end / after each category / not at all]. In the second round their base price is [unchanged / reduced to X].

10. Filling the squad. A team that has not reached the minimum squad after every player has been offered will be allocated remaining unsold players by [the organizer / a draft in reverse order of spend], at the base price.

11. Absent players. A player who has not confirmed attendance for the tournament will not be offered. A player who is sold and then withdraws is [replaced from the unsold pool / not replaced], and the money is [returned / not returned].

12. Owners who do not attend. A team without a representative at the auction may nominate a proxy in writing before the start. Otherwise the organizer bids the minimum to fill that squad and the team accepts the outcome.

13. Disputes. The organizer's decision on the night is final. Disputes raised after the auction ends will not reopen a sale.

14. Payment. Team entry fees must be settled by [date]. Auction money is notional and no real money changes hands through the auction.

The clauses people forget

Clause 9, unsold players. This is the single most common source of trouble. Decide in advance whether an unsold player gets a second chance and at what price, and say it out loud at the start of the night. An unsold player who thinks they are finished, then hears their name again ninety minutes later, is a much happier person than one who finds out the rule as it happens.

Clause 10, filling the squad. With a properly set budget every team can afford its minimum squad, but a team that spends recklessly early can still end short if the pool runs dry. Say what you will do. The two workable answers are organizer allocation and a reverse draft, and both are fine as long as they are announced beforehand.

Clause 12, absent owners. Somebody will not turn up. Deciding on the night looks like favouritism whichever way you rule.

Clause 14, payment. Auction money is not real money. Write it down anyway, because in a first-year tournament somebody always asks.

What the software enforces for you

You do not need a clause for the things the auction refuses outright:

• A bid a team cannot afford is refused.
• A bid that would leave a team unable to fill its remaining squad slots is refused, because a reserve is held back for them.
• A team whose squad is already full cannot bid.
• Every team starts with the same budget, and it cannot be edited once bidding is live.

Rules 1 to 4 are settings rather than promises, so they hold themselves. The rest are agreements between people, which is exactly why they belong in a document everyone has read.

Set the numbers with the purse calculator first, then send the rules out. The run sheet for the night itself is here.