By Onkar Jadhav · 7 min read
Team registration, with and without an auction.
A team entering with its own squad and a franchise entering with only an owner and a purse are two different registrations. Both end at the same place: a confirmed entry list the fixture generator can run on.
How do teams register for a cricket tournament?
Cricket team registration takes one of two shapes. In a squad tournament, a captain registers the team and its players together against a squad cap, and the entry fee is paid per team. In an auction tournament, a team registers as an owner and a purse with no players at all, and the squad is filled at the auction instead.
Two different registrations
Team registration takes one of two shapes and they have almost nothing in common except the entry fee. Which one you are running determines what the form asks for and what happens next.
| Squad tournament | Auction tournament | |
|---|---|---|
| What a team registers with | A team name and a full squad of players | A team name, an owner and a purse |
| Who registers | The captain, on behalf of the squad | The owner, who may not be the captain |
| Players | Listed at registration, against a squad cap | None. The squad is filled at the auction |
| Next step | Straight to fixtures | The auction, then fixtures |
| What the fee covers | Ground, balls, officials, prizes | The same, often plus the purse basis |
If teams arrive at an auction with squads already assembled, there is nothing for the auction to decide. That sounds obvious and is a mistake organizers make by reusing last year’s squad-tournament form.
What to collect
- Team name. Plus a short version for the points table, because “Shivaji Nagar Super Strikers XI” does not fit a standings column.
- Owner name and mobile. Whoever will bid on auction day and answer the phone when a fixture moves.
- Captain name and mobile. Often a different person. Record both.
- Entry fee reference. Same reasoning as player registration: a row with a payment reference is verifiable.
- Squad list. Only in a squad tournament, against a published cap.
Squad caps
Playing eleven plus three or four, so 14 or 15 for a full-format tournament and 10 to 12 for box cricket. The cap has to leave room for unavailability without letting registered players never reach the field.
A cap too close to the playing eleven means one injury forfeits a match. A cap far above it means a squad of twenty where six players paid to watch, which is the kind of thing that stops people entering next year.
Entry fees
A flat fee per team paid at registration, covering ground hire, balls, umpires, scorers, trophies and the prize fund. Publish the breakdown.
Teams accept a high entry fee with a stated breakdown far more readily than a low one with none, and the breakdown has a second benefit: it stops the organizer discovering mid-tournament that the prize fund was never actually funded. Budget lines in full.
Confirming the team list
Fixtures cannot be built against a team count that might change, so team registration has to close harder than player registration. Confirm payment, confirm the owner contact, and then treat the list as final.
State the withdrawal rule in the confirmation message, before anyone has withdrawn. Why the rule has to precede the withdrawal.
Team registration FAQ
Do teams register players in an auction tournament?
No. The point of an auction is that the player pool is registered centrally and distributed by bidding, so a team registers as an owner, a team name and a purse. If teams arrive with squads already assembled, there is nothing for an auction to decide.
How many players should a squad cap allow?
Playing eleven plus three or four, so 14 or 15 for a full-format tournament and 10 to 12 for box cricket. A cap too close to the playing eleven means one injury forfeits a match; a cap far above it means registered players never get on the field.
Who should be listed as the team owner?
Whoever will be bidding on auction day and answering the phone when a fixture moves, which is often not the captain. Record both, and make the owner the account that receives the auction link.
How are team entry fees usually handled?
A flat fee per team paid at registration, covering ground hire, balls and the prize fund. Publish what the fee covers. Teams accept a high entry fee with a stated breakdown far more readily than a low one with none.