IPL to have ten teams from 2022 season
Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
Former fast bowler Chetan Sharma was on Thursday named chairman of the senior men’s selection committee of the BCCI.
BCCI’s Cricket Advisory committee (CAC) led by Madan Lal selected Chetan Sharma, Abey Kuruvilla and Debashish Mohanty as the new members of senior selection committee on Thursday afternoon.
The names were declared in a statement released by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) after the Annual General Meeting in Ahmedabad.
The committee further recommended Chetan Sharma for the role of Chairman of the senior men’s selection committee based on seniority (total number of Test matches). The CAC will review the candidates after a one-year period and make the recommendations to the BCCI.
The three new members will join Sunil Joshi and Harvinder Singh in the selection committee.
As per reports, Ajit Agarkar, Abey Kuruvilla and Nayan Mongia had applied for the post from West Zone. Chetan Sharma, Maninder Singh, Vijay Dahiya, Ajay Ratra and Nikhil Chopra applied from the North Zone. Shiv Sunder Das, Debashish Mohanty and Ranadeb Bose applied from East Zone.
In another decision taken at the AGM, the BCCI approved a 10-team IPL from 2022 edition.
Paucity of time along with the complexities of conducting the tournament during the Covid-19 pandemic are the two main deterrents the BCCI has recognised against adding two new teams in 2021 itself.
With the next edition of the IPL scheduled for an April start, the Board has four months to achieve several targets if two new teams are to be added.
Ten teams will mean 94 matches in the home and away format. That implies a bigger window for the tournament, which may be tough given the current situation”,
First, the BCCI would need to issue a tender to invite bidders to buy the two new franchises. It would also need to list a set number of cities around India for the bidders to pick their home base from. That would be followed by a mega auction where all 10 franchises would build their squads. Even before that the existing eight franchises would need to be told how many players they could retain including the combination of Indian and overseas players.
Also, it was decided that all first-class players, both men and women, will be suitably compensated for the curtailed domestic season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The BCCI plans to get the domestic season underway, after several months’ delay, in January with the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 championship.
Meanwhile the Indian Cricketers’ Association (ICA) has nominated the former India spinner Pragyan Ojha to the IPL Governing Council. Ojha will replace Surinder Khanna. As per the BCCI constitution, updated in the wake of the Lodha Committee reforms, the ICA representative will be nominated Governing Council every year.
Ojha will join former India batsman Brijesh Patel and Khairul Majumdar, the Mizoram Cricket Association president, who were elected unopposed for a second term from the BCCI general body to sit on the IPL Governing Council.