Regulate IPL before the money-spinner becomes a bane

The Indian Premier League (IPL) has helped make BCCI, the world’s most powerful cricket body. It was essentially launched in 2008 to curtail the private cricket league called ICL (Indian Cricket League), which was not recognised by the ICC and BCCI. In fact, there was a blanket ban on players turning up for ICL matches. The central pool of BCCI is now estimated to be around ₹9,000 crore-10,000 crore, which includes media broadcast rights fees and central sponsorships. Almost half of this will be distributed to the teams, each of which will walk away with up to ₹450-500 crore. Sponsorships that franchises bag is estimated to be around ₹75-100 crore per team. So, each IPL franchises will be looking at overall revenue in the range of ₹500-600 crore this season. This will be 80-100 per cent growth in revenues over last year. IPL was created to give equal opportunities to domestic players and to improve the standards of the domestic cricket; but the extent to which it has achieved its goals has to be evaluated. IPL is a franchise-based tournament and players are paid by the team owners. IPL helps the players especially the domestic players, the uncapped players to get a feel of the international level of competition. This has increased the playing standards of Ranji Trophy. Moreover, it is a platform wherein senior players can share their experiences and mentor emerging talent.

The salary or incentive or match fees given to domestic players is pittance compared to the earnings in IPL, which doles out enough to the budding talent for fine-tuning their career asoirations. IPL has not only helped the Indian domestic players but it has also helped foreign uncapped players. There are many examples where a player doing well in IPL has got chance in their national team. IPL has also resulted in improving the infrastructure facilities in stadiums.

However, in hindsight, we can notice that IPL is moving away from its main goal of improving standards of domestic cricket and there is large-scale corruption and betting. Team management itself is indulging in match-fixing and spot fixing but none from the fraternity wishes to talk about the dark side of IPL. Cricket is a gentlemen’s game and remained so till late 1990’s. Match-fixing that erupted in those dark days was brought under check over a period of time but the advent of the IPL circus has brought it back to focus, and is a serious threat to the game’s future. One should also remember that IPL also spreads India’s cultural heritage, which is showcased during the opening and closing ceremonies. IPL can remain a boon if it sticks to the core principles and formulates strong rules in order to curtail all fixing issues. It is necessary for the BCCI and the Union sports ministry to strong decisions and stringent regulations, failing which IPL will become history in the not too distant future.