The IPL Governing Council on Saturday announced that the players from the terminated IPL franchise Kochi Tuskers Kerala will be up for the next auction.

"The trading window will open on December 15, 2011 and will run through to January 20, 2012. There will be a short second trading window after the players' auction," said IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla.

The fifth edition of the Indian Premier League will comprise of 76 games in total with every franchise playing 16 games each on a home-and-away basis. The match tally also includes four play-offs which will take place in Bangalore and Chennai.

The tournament is scheduled to start on April 4 in Chennai with the finals to be held at the same venue on May 27, 2012.

It has also been decided that the nine franchises will have a larger salary cap of US$ 2 million to spend on players apart from increasing the number of players for each team from 30 to 33. While the teams are now allowed to have 11 foreigners in their side, only four can feature in the playing XI.