The IPL governing council has come with a new term, RTM for the IPL 2014 edition.

Lets understand what is RTM and how does it works?

RTM means ‘Right to Match’ card which can be flashed at a time when the franchise wishes to retain any of its existing players. The franchises have to pay the highest bid for that player in the auction and thus they can retain the player. RTM availability depends on the already retained players

For example: Every franchise starts with 3 RTM’s in their pockets. If they don’t retain any player, they will have 3 RTM’s. But if they retain 1-2 players they will have 2 RTM’s and if they retain 3-5 players they will have just 1 RTM left.

This addition of RTM is also guided by old IPL laws and is not something which will overturn the earlier guidelines like a franchise can have a minimum of 16, and a maximum of 27 players with not more than 9 foreign cricketers.