This is the first time that Dhoni, who led the now-suspended Chennai Super Kings for eight years, will be bought by another team.
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Players from Chennai and Rajasthan were made available in a draft on Tuesday for the two teams to pick five players each at the salary they were getting with their old teams.
Seven players of the suspended Chennai Super Kings, including Dhoni, were picked along with three others from the Rajasthan Royals, also banned from the league for two years.
Pune franchise is likely to get its hands on Mahendra Singh Dhoni while Rajkot owners are likely to prefer hometown boy Ravindra Jadeja.
New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum becomes first overseas player to be picked. Once both teams zero in on the 10 players’ names, the remaining 40 players will be included in the auction pool for the player auction to be held in February.
List of Indian players (33): Ravichandran Ashwin, Stuart Binny, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhawal Kulkarni, Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, Irfan Pathan, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Sanju Samson, Mohit Sharma, Rahul Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Eklavya Dwivedi, Deepak Hooda, Vikramjeet Malik, Mithun Manhas, Ronit More, Karun Nair, Pawan Negi, Ishwar Chandra Pandey, Pardeep Sahu, Dinesh Salunkhe, Barinder Singh Saran, Ankit Nagendra Sharma, Pratyush Singh, Pravin Tambe, Rahul Tewatia, Sagar Vijay Trivedi and Dishant Yagnik. Pune and Rajkot will be allowed to pick a maximum of four capped Indian players each, in accordance with the existing retention rule.
Brendon McCullum became the first overseas played to be picked in the draft when Pune bagged him after having picked Ajinkya Rahane and R Ashwin.
The two teams had a cap of 66 crores at the start of the draft. “The contract between the player and the earlier franchise will be shared with the new franchise so that there is absolute clarity”.
Rajiv Shukla, the IPL chairman, welcomed the new franchises, who will be the part of the event for just two years.
Uncapped players can get a maximum of Rs 4 crore. These franchises also have the option of picking less than five players at the draft or not picking any player at all, which is unlikely to be the case.
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The ninth edition of the IPL is scheduled to be held from April 9 to May 29, 2016.
