Four new venues for IPL III; ICL players’ allowed to play

By pratik
for Cricketain.com

Published: August 12, 2009

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Mumbai: Indian Premier League will be getting bigger and better in the third season with four new venues added to the league and an extra match which will be a playoff for the third place.

The third season of the cash rich league of the BCCI will kick off on March 12, 2010 in Hyderabad, with the first match to be played between the winners of the second season Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders.

The final of the 45-day Twenty20 cricket league, which proved a huge success in its first two editions in India and South Africa, would be held on April 25, IPL Chairman Lalit Modi announced after a meeting of its Governing Council here on Tuesday.

IPL III will have four additional match staging centres — Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala — and will also stage one extra match, the 60th, for the third place play-off, Modi said.

“The playing window remains the same, 45 days,” Modi said before adding that the Governing Council had also decided to include two more franchisees in IPL IV to be held in 2011. “There would be 94 games in all with each franchisee playing 18, instead of 14 preliminary phase games. But the window would remain more or less the same.”

The four additional venues would witness matches featuring Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals, he said. “Nagpur would host some matches of Mumbai Indians, Vishakhapatnam of Deccan Chargers, Ahmedabad of Rajasthan Royals and Dharamsala of Kings XI Punjab.”

In another big announcement, Modi said that the IPL has decided to allow players who have switched alliances from the rebel Indian Cricket League to BCCI by taking advantage of the latter’s amnesty offer, provided the BCCI Working Committee approves this move in its meeting on August 13.

“Provided the BCCI Working Committee approves this, the salary cap for such players who have returned from the rebel league has been fixed between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 20 lakh, except those who have played internationals who would have to be auctioned off,” he said.

The salary cap for each franchise remains the same at USD seven million as well as the number of foreign players which would be 10 in all and 4 in the playing XI, Modi added. He also said that the new trading window would open from December 15, 2009 to January 5, 2010, and all other conditions would remain the same as last year’s.

Talking about the strategic time-out which was a huge topic of discussion during IPL II, he said there is a change in the strategic time-out that was introduced in IPL II and received mixed responses from players and critics. They have been reduced from seven and half minutes to five.

“The time-outs are mandatory with the bowling team mandated to utilise the first time out lasting 2.5 minutes between overs 6 and 10 and the batting team the second between overs 11 and 16,” the IPL chairman said.

“We have finalised the entire schedule of IPL III eight months ahead,” he declared. Modi also made it clear that players contracted to their country’s boards for one year cannot just refuse to sign the contract when offered to them the next year in order to play in the IPL.

“A contracted player in the previous year will have to get an NOC from his home board to appear in the IPL. We want to plug this loophole and to maintain the sanctity of international cricket,” Modi said explaining that such cases have come to the fore.”

Modi also confirmed that from IPL-IV, the icon player status being enjoyed by some of the players will be scrapped. “There won’t be an icon player from IPL-IV.”

He said that he expects a franchise team to represent a city from Gujarat from IPL-IV because of the level of interest shown in IPL I and II by that state’s cricket lovers.

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