Indian Premier League (IPL) fever may have gripped the country, but in Ahmedabad, cricket fanatics are coping with it in their own way — a mini, amateur version of the Twenty20 tournament called the Ahmedabad Premier League (APL), which began on May 7.
The 79-match tournament replicates IPL in almost every way, complete with team franchisees and quirky names, though not the big bucks.
“We wanted to organise a match on the IPL format and thought of this franchise where we formed teams and put them up on sale for the public,” said Harsh Jhaveri, a member of Juggernaut, an independent five-member group formed two years ago to organise cricket and football matches in the city. The group’s aim is to bring the IPL format to the general public in the city at reasonable rates.
Overall, 18 teams were bought and 160 players auctioned on a point system in a span of five hours. This is how it worked. Each owner was given 1,000 points by way of an ‘asset value’ in exchange for Rs 2,350 to buy a team and an additional 8,520 points as ‘liquid points’ to buy players from other teams.
“As in IPL, we have the transfer window system in which the owners can use these extra points to buy players from other teams through mutual transfer or forceful buying. Each team gets to play eight matches,” Jhaveri said.
The matches are sponsored by cement manufacturer Sparta Cements and Current, an energy drink brand. The owners of the teams are working executives, businessmen and students — the age group ranges from 15 years to 30 years — who manage, motivate and train the teams.
The bid for the highest player was Rs 505 from Dark Horse Riders team. “Like Kolkata Knight Riders, this team has also lost six matches so far,” Jhaveri joked.
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Another similarity with the IPL is that the local teams also have some innovative names — Ahmedabad Fakers, Spartans, King Dons, Bullishers, Dark Horse Riders, Devil King Warriors, M United, Rising Star, D Vintage, Splenetics, Youth XI and Wizards to name a few.
Jhaveri informed that Bullishers, Youth XI, Bluechips, Devil King Warriors and M United have been consistent in playing well so far.
The winning team owner gets a cash prize of Rs 9,000 and the runners-up Rs 6,000. Players of the winning team would get Rs 1,500 and the runners-up Rs 1,000.
“Since this is a small scale series, we are expecting a modest revenue of Rs 25,000 from these matches,” Jhaveri added. Juggernaut, however, is planning to register itself as a firm next year; it has realised, said Jhaveri, “the potential in organising such tournaments”.