The concept of a mega auction and the retention policy are learnt to have led to a lot of debate during the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s meeting with the IPL franchise owners on Wednesday.
Sources told The Telegraph that Kolkata Knight Riders’ principal owner Shah Rukh Khan spoke out against the mega auction at the meeting and was supported by a few other voices, including SunRisers Hyderabad.
Several franchises have been demanding six to eight retentions during the mega auction while a few like Punjab Kings are for fewer numbers.
The discussions often led to a heated exchange of words between the franchise owners, sources said.
The logic put forward by franchise owners who were against the mega auctions was simple: It takes a lot of hard work to build a team and more effort to groom youngsters. Hence it would be unfair for them to build a side again from scratch after every five years.
SunRisers’ owners are learnt to have cited the example of their young opener Abhishek Sharma, who put in a scintillating performance last season, at the meeting.
Perhaps the number of retentions finally allowed by the BCCI could decide whether Mahendra Singh Dhoni stays with Chennai Super Kings as a player or dons the hat of a mentor during the next season.
Owners of the nine IPL franchises were present at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai which began at 7.30pm. Only Mumbai Indians’ owners joined via video conference from Paris.
The others who turned up at the meeting were Sanjiv Goenka of Lucknow Super Giants, Kiran Kumar Grandhi and Parth Jindal of Delhi Capitals, CSK’s Rupa Gurunath, Kavya Maran of SunRisers, Ness Wadia of Punjab Kings and Manoj Badale of Rajasthan Royals.
It’s still not clear whether the BCCI will decide to have the mega auction as the discussions continued for more than three hours.
The meeting failed to arrive at a consensus on the retention policy though the BCCI described it as a “constructive dialogue”.
The BCCI is learnt to have told the franchise owners that they would convey their decision by end of August.
“The franchise owners tabled feedback on player regulations and other commercial aspects, including central merchandising, licensing, and gaming,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a media release.
“The BCCI will now take these recommendations to the IPL governing council for further deliberation and evaluation before formulating the IPL player regulations.”
Jindal spoke to the media after the meeting. “I’m surprised that there was a debate over continuation of the big auction in the first place. I’m personally in favour of it,” Jindal said.
Jindal also said there was a debate on the Impact Player rule with varying views from the franchises. “Impact Player rule is detrimental to the growth of the all-rounders,” he said.