The new player retention rules for the Indian Premier League (IPL), which will come into effect from the next season of the T20 cricket tournament, have been termed “biased” by owners of some of the teams.
One of the new franchise owners said, on condition of anonymity, “The new rules favour some franchises over others. We had pleaded that all teams should be brought in the auction pool. The demand and supply mechanism would have taken care of a player’s right price.”
Questionable logic
The IPL Governing Council brought in the new price structure for player retention so that one franchise would not be able to “artificially raise” the price of a player in the bidding war, to create a dent in the purse of the franchise inclined to retain the player. “The logic behind the price cap for player retention is baseless. If a team wants a player, it should be able to win him in an auction as all the stakeholders in the tournament should have equal opportunity to get the players they want,” the franchise owner said.
The rules seem to have confused even the older franchises. Kolkata Knight Riders’ owner, Shah Rukh Khan, wrote on the social networking site, Twitter, “New IPL rules a bit confusing. All players should go into pool to make it fair for everyone. Simple and straight.”
On September 5, the IPL Governing Council decreed that existing teams be allowed to retain four players. The auction purse of the franchises was raised to $9 million each from the next season. The first player retained will cost a team $1.8 million, regardless of the amount the player is actually paid. The second player will cost $1.3 million, the third $900,000 and the fourth $500,000.
While the existing teams will be allowed to retain four players, the two new teams will be offered the right to retain a maximum of four players who haven’t been part of the IPL in any previous seasons. Which means they have to pay high fees for players who are yet to prove their mettle in the IPL. “We are being offered untested players at the price for which existing teams will be allowed to retain their iconic players,” said the owner of the new franchise quoted above.
Another existing owner, whose team did not perform well in the last edition of the tournament, said, “There are just a handful of players who are likely to come into the $1.8 million bracket. The list would include the big names like Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni and Virender Sehwag. Players like Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh are likely to fall in the second bracket.”
Adding: “This rule would benefit a franchise only if they had signed a player in the $1.3-1.8 million bracket. Using all four retention options will mean that a franchise will have only $4.5 million to spend on 26 other players.”
Who gains
According to sources, the two franchises that have benefited the most from the new dispensation are Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians. CSK would have been desperate to retain Indian cricket captain M S Dhoni, the country’s highest paid sportsperson, while Mumbai Indians would have been keen to avoid a bidding war for cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar.
The Governing Council also decided that 74 matches will be played from 2011 onwards and not the originally planned 94. The coming three seasons of IPL will have 70 league matches and four playoff matches, with each team having the same number of matches (14, seven home and seven away) as in the previous IPL editions.
Till last season, eight franchises played 56 matches in the league phase on a home-and-away basis, followed by two semifinals, a third place match between losing semi-finalists in order to become the third team to qualify for the Champions League and a grand final, making it a total of 60 matches. The addition of two more franchises starting next season meant the number would go up to 94 matches. The IPL Governing Council felt this was unfeasible, also considering that IPL 2011 would be held after the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup.
