BCCI official suggests increasing overseas players' limit from 4 to 5 as IPL gears up for new teams

The BCCI is likely to release the tender for the new teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL) post-Diwali. The board has been planning to expand the tournament for quite some time and reports suggest that IPL 2021 will have more than eight teams. But while the BCCI is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the addition of the news teams, the existing franchises are reportedly not very excited about it.

Adding new teams would call for a mega auction and the franchises are not very supportive of it. The mega auction would mean the teams will have to plan extensively for a new core and they don’t really have much time for that. The revenue of the teams will be affected too if the new teams are introduced ahead of the next season.

The current revenue system is likely to continue till 2023 and the new additions will be part of that same revenue pool. In such a scenario, the shares of the revenue for each team will decrease as the revenue will be divided among ten teams instead of eight.

Franchises worried over the quality

The franchises are also worried that the introduction of the new teams will deteriorate the quality of the teams. Some of the teams have already struggled to maintain quality in the squad with the Indian players at their disposal because of the restriction over foreign players’ participation. As per the existing rules, all the teams are allowed to field only four overseas players in their playing XI.

The franchises are worried that if the number of teams is increased, the pool of Indian players would be further deprived of quality. Thus most of the franchises are apprehensive that the addition of the new teams might make things trickier for them.

“Teams are already finding it difficult to ensure quality. If we look at most IPL squads, around seven to nine players form the core while two to three players per squad are rotated to find the right balance. Now, if eight franchises are increased to 10, that quality further gets diluted.

“IPL’s core – the very essence of having a salary purse every year – is to ensure the overall quality of all eight franchises remains somewhere at the same level, regardless of an individual franchise’s spending capacity. If two extra teams draw from the same pool of cricketers at the auction, can the quality be guaranteed,” existing franchises asked as per the Times of India.

While only time will tell whether BCCI finally changes its rule on overseas players’ limit or not but one of their officials believes it is the right step. The news outlet quoted a BCCI official as suggesting that the number of overseas players per playing XI in a franchise to be increased from 4 to 5. According to him, such a move will ensure quality in the IPL teams, “There are quality overseas players who are warming the bench every season because of the restriction. An added overseas player will balance out that need,” the official said.