Indian Premier League; Council Member Gavaskar on Player Retention
Player retention in the Indian Premier League has grown, and so have the different opinions on it. Pune is set to join the IPL next season and new Pune coach, Geoff Marsh is against player retention, while the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 and Chennai franchises are desperate to maintain it, their main concern being the retention of iconic players, namely Dhoni and Tendulkar. IPL council member and former Indian captain, Sunil Gavaskar has given a solution to this problem, he has devised a plan according to which the original eight franchises could retain up to seven of their players, if they bid up to $2 million for each player at the player auction.
All the players will be part of the auction, but the franchises could nominate the players they wanted to retain. Provided the player’s original franchise was a bidder, they will have the first right of refusal if the auction reached the $2 million limit.
Gavaskar is part of the three man panel appointed by the BCCI to make recommendations on this issue and the improvement of the structure of the league. The other members of the panel, Ravi Shastri and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mansur-Ali-Khan-c1894 Pataudi agree with Gavaskar’s proposals, which will certainly make the league more equal for all teams.
Gavaskar said that it will be important to limit the spending at the auction to $8 million, so that the teams will have to think carefully of who they wanted to keep. On top of this, he suggested that the number of players in a squad be capped to 25, with a restriction on the number of matches a single player can participate in so as to avoid burnout. “Since a player could only play 14 matches plus the knockouts, a franchise could play five overseas players in four matches, but not in the knockout stage,” read Gavaskar’s email which was sent to only the eight captains of the original franchises and not the team officials or owners.
Though Gavaskar admitted that player retention will hurt the new additions to the league, Pune and Kochi, he said it would be unfair of the IPL body to go back on its earlier decision, which gave its approval to teams to keep four Indian and three foreign players. However, there have been setbacks following the suspension of IPL chairman, Lalit Modi. Modi was accused of financial irregularities while in charge and attempts to start a rebel Twenty20 league in England, for which he was suspended.
The franchise owners have already met with the BCCI president, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shashank-Manohar-c89791 and stand in chairman, Chirayu Amin, and have discussed next year’s IPL season in detail. Pataudi, Shastri and Gavaskar also had one on one meetings of their own with the franchise owners, salaries, squad size and most importantly, player retention was discussed. It was at this meeting that Mumbai and Chennai expressed their wish to retain players, while the other franchises were not certain of their stance on this pressing issue. The proposals were put up for review in a previous meeting a month ago, in June, but no decision could be reached. It is expected that this issue will be dealt with in the upcoming council meeting in August.
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