Several of Australia and India’s Test stars might be distracted during the first Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy with the IPL mega auction confirmed to take place on November 24 and 25.

Bidding in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – it is the second successive year that the auction will be held outside of India after last year’s was in Dubai – will clash with the third and fourth days of the opening match of the five-Test series at Optus Stadium in Perth.

Watch every ball of Australia v Pakistan ODI Series LIVE & exclusive to FOX CRICKET, available on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.

It make some for restless nights in both camps as players wait to find out how much their bank account is going to swell next year, or if they have missed out all together.

Pat Cummins ($3.18 million) and Travis Head ($2.5m) are the only Australians who will be able to sleep easy knowing they have been retained by Sunrisers Hyderabad after playing pivotal roles in their run to the final this year.

Indian stars Virat Kohli ($3.76m), Ravindra Jadeja ($3.22m), Jasprit Bumrah ($3.22m), Yashasvi Jaiswal ($3.22m) and Shubman Gill ($2.95m) who are all expected to play in Perth have also been retained by their respective IPL franchises.

But the likes of Mitchell Starc, who champions Kolkata Knight Riders made the most expensive player in IPL last year when they purchased him for $4.39m, Rishabh Pant, Mitchell Marsh and Ravichandran Ashwin will be eagerly awaiting news from the Saudi capital after they were released last week ahead of the mega auction.

The IPL mega auction takes places every three years to throw the competition wide open with all ten franchises only allowed to retain six players from the previous season.

Some have not even done that.

The Punjab Kings, for example, have only retained two players to give new coach Ricky Ponting the new opportunity to compile an almost entirely fresh squad.

There are an astonishing 1574 players (1165 Indian and 409 overseas) registered for the auction including 76 Australians.

Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, Tim David, Marcus Stoinis, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Cameron Green – who will miss next year’s IPL as he recovers from back surgery – headlined the list of Australian white ball extraordinaries who were released by their franchises, but all, apart from Green, will once again expect to rake in the big bucks.

England Test captain Ben Stokes is the most high profile player who has opted out of next year’s edition of the tournament to manage his workload and fitness ahead of massive year of Test cricket as his side host India in a five-Test series before travelling to Australia for the Ashes.

England’s all-time Test leading wicket-taker James Anderson is a somewhat unexpected name who has thrown his hat in the ring to try play his first season in the IPL following his retirement from international cricket earlier this year.

Bidding for Anderson will start at the base price of $224,555 as players have to opt-in at various starting prices for their services.

Players from all around the cricket world have put their names forward including from associate nations like Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Scotland, USA and UAE.

Each team can build up a squad of up to 25 players – including eight overseas players, four of which can be in the starting XI for each game – and 46 players were retained which means 204 spots are available at auction.

All ten franchises have a purse of $21.56m to piece together their squads with.

Ponting’s Punjab Kings will be the ones to watch with the most amount of money remaining ($19.89m) after using the least amount of retentions, while the right-to-match rules will also make things fascinating.

A franchise that owned a player in the previous season has the right-to-match what a competitor is willing to pay for them at the end of bidding, but the clause is seen as similar to retentions so teams can only use one or the other on up to six players.

Punjab will be have the right-to-match on four players seeing as they only used two retentions, while Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders have no right-to-match options as they used all six retentions.