The Indian Premier League (IPL) looks all set for a drastic change in format from next season with the recent ouster of Kochi Tuskers.
According to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials, the fifth edition of the professional league for T20 cricket competition in India is likely to have nine teams.
The BCCI-initiated IPL’s governing council (GC), which meets on Friday in Hyderabad, is likely to restore the “home-and-away round-robin system” (where every team plays the other). This could lead to more number of matches compared to IPL-4.
A BCCI official said the next meeting of the country’s apex cricket board would discuss the termination of the Kochi franchise, the number of teams for the next IPL and the format.
Last season, the GC had replicated the National Basketball Association format and divided the 10 teams into two groups of five each. But this had not gone down to well with both franchisees and broadcasters. The main reason was that the earlier projections for IPL-4 had shown higher revenue with matches totalling to as many as 94. But IPL-4 eventually got reduced to 74 matches, thanks to the hectic international calendar.
Today, BCCI officials feel that the proposed home-and-away format is likely to solve a lot of issues in the tournament. “The teams,” says an official “were not happy with the current format of dividing the teams into two groups.”
This was also a major bone of contention between the BCCI and Kochi, as the teams only played 14 of the 18 games that had been mentioned in the Invitation to Tender document. The reduced number of matches had prompted the team to seek a 25 per cent waiver.
It was last month that the BCCI terminated the contract of Kochi franchise. Reason: non-payment of dues. The Kerala team, which was won with a bid of Rs 1,550 crore in 2010, was supposed to make the payment over a 10-year period. The consortium defaulted on a Rs 156-crore annual payment despite reminders by IPL authorities.
BCCI boss N Srinivasan later said the board had decided to encash the bank guarantee in its possession because of an “irremediable breach” the Kochi franchise committed. “We are also terminating the franchise,” he added, at the annual general meeting here.
The franchise, on its part, described the termination as wrongful and has moved to court.
The board has informally notified the nine franchisees that the players of Kochi Tuskers would not be part of the trading window between teams. Instead they wold go straight to the auction that is to take place this December and January next year. IPL-5 will begin on April 4, 2012, and conclude on May 27.
