Indian Premier League (IPL)

Indian Premier League (IPL)


The Indian Premier League (also known as the "DLF Indian Premier League" and often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and chaired by the Chairman & Commissioner IPL, BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi. The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008, and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the Mumbai. The second season begins on 10 April 2009.


Rules

There are five ways that a franchise can acquire a player. In the annual auction, buying domestic players, signing uncapped players through trading and buying replacements. In the trading window the player can only be traded with his consent. The franchise will have to pay the difference between the old contract price and the new contract price. If the new contract is worth more than the older one then the difference will be shared between the player and the franchise selling the player.


Some of the Team composition rules are:

• Minimum squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.


• No more than 8 foreign players in the squad and at most 4 in the playing XI.For the 2009 edition franchises are allowed 10 foreign players in the squad. The number allowed in the playing XI remains unchanged at 4.


• A minimum of 8 local players must be included in each team.


• A minimum of 2 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each team.

The players accorded "icon" status are: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag . The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5m. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. Icon players are to be paid 15% more than the highest paid player in their respective teams.

Franchises: Existing Original Eight

The winning bidders for the eight franchises were announced on 24 January 2008. While the total base price for auction was US $400 million, the auction fetched US $723.59 million. The official list of franchise owners announced and the winning bids were as follows.

Mumbai Indians of Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries) at $ 111.9 m
Royal Challengers Bangalore of Vijay Mallya (UB Group) at $ 111.6 m
Hyderabad Deccan Chargers of Deccan Chargers Sporting Venture at $ 107.0 m
Chennai Super Kings of India Cements (N Srinivasan) at $ 91.0 m
Delhi Daredevils of GMR Holdings (Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao) at $ 84.0 m
Kings XI Punjab of Ness Wadia (Bombay Dyeing), Preity Zinta, Mohit Burman (Dabur) and Karan Paul (Apeejay Surendera Group) at $ 76.0 m
Kolkata Knight Riders of Red Chillies Entertainment (S Khan, J C Mehta & J Mehta) at $ 75.1 m
Rajasthan Royals of Emerging Media (Lachlan Murdoch, A.R Jha and Suresh Chellaram), Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra at $ 67.0 m

Controversies
The BCCI had found itself in the middle of many conflicts with various cricket boards around the world as a result of the IPL. The main point of contention was that signed players should always be available to their country for international tours, even if it overlaps with the IPL season. To address this, the BCCI officially requested that the ICC institute a time period in the International Future Tours Program solely for the IPL season. This request was not granted at a subsequent meeting held by the ICC.

Hypocrisy with ICL
The BCCI has faced criticism for its apparent double-standards; while it supports the IPL and allows players to participate in it, players that play in the ICL are punished. Most experts see not much difference between the ICL and IPL.

Conflicts with the England and Wales Cricket Board
Because the inaugural IPL season coincided with the County Championship season as well as New Zealand's tour of England, the ECB and county cricket clubs raised their concerns to the BCCI over players. The ECB made it abundantly clear that they would not sign No Objection Certificates for players—a prerequisite for playing in the IPL. Chairmen of the county clubs also made it clear that players contracted to them were required to fulfill their commitment to their county. As a result of this, Dimitri Mascarenhas was the only English player to have signed with the IPL for the 2008 season.

Another result of the ECB’s on-going fear of players fleeing to the IPL was a proposed radical response of creating their own Twenty20 tournament that would be similar in structure to the IPL. The league — titled the English Premier League— would feature 21 teams in three groups of seven and would occur towards the end of the summer season. The ECB enlisted the aid of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford to launch the proposed league. Stanford was the brains behind the successful Stanford 20/20, a tournament that has run twice in the West Indies.

Conflicts with Cricket Australia
The BCCI also experienced run-ins with Cricket Australia (CA) over player availability for Australia’s tour of the West Indies and CA’s desire for global protection of their sponsors. CA had feared that sponsors of the IPL (and its teams) that directly competed with their sponsors would jeopardize already existing arrangements. This issue was eventually resolved and it was also agreed upon that Australian players would be fully available for the West Indies tour.

Conflicts with the Pakistan Cricket Board
Many players from the Pakistan Cricket Team who were not offered renewed central contracts (or decided to reject new contracts) decided to join the rival Indian Cricket League(ICL). Two such players—Naved-ul-Hasan and Mushtaq Ahmed also held contracts with English Counties. The PCB decided to issue No Objection Certificates for these players to play with their county teams on the basis that since they were no longer contracted to the PCB, there was no point in not granting them their NOCs. The latter did not sit well with the BCCI, as it went against the hard line stance they had taken on players who joined the ICL.

Conflict with Cricket Club of India
As per IPL rules, the winner of the previous competition decides the venue for the finals. In 2009, the reigning Champions, Rajasthan Royals chose the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. However, a dispute regarding use of the pavillion meant that no IPL matches could be held here. The members of the Cricket Club of India that owns the stadium have the sole right to the pavillion on match days, whereas the IPL required the pavillion for its sponsors. The members were offered free seats in the stands, however the club rejected the offer, stating that members could not be moved out of the pavillion.