Starting season minus big players isn’t happy occasion for anyone, say IPL franchises

With Australia playing New Zealand in three T20Is, while England and Sri Lanka play two Test matches, IPL franchises with players from the respective countries will be forced to cope without their big-money signings for the early phase of the campaign. 

“See, while the Australia-New Zealand series ends with the final T20I being played on March 29, the second Test of the series between England and Sri Lanka technically ends on March 31. In such a scenario, you start the season minus your big players and that isn’t a happy occasion. If we do start from April 1, the scenario looks so much better. Hopefully, the IPL GC will see what we are speaking about makes for a consideration,” a senior official of a franchise told IANS.

An official of another franchise revealed that at least four franchises had brought up the scheduling issue during the briefing on the eve of the player auction, which was held in Mumbai on December 19.

“See, it is a scenario which the franchises realised isn’t very favourable and the matter was in fact debated by around 4 to 5 of the teams present as nobody wants to start on the back foot. But then, we can only hope. You might see an appeal from some of us as we still have around a couple of weeks to go before the calendar is released,” the official said.

An official of one of the franchises which bore the brunt of their overseas players going away for national duty last season — with the World Cup in sight — requested the IPL Governing Council to show more grace this time around. 

“Last year, our guys went away in the business end and this time we might have to start the season without our top four overseas players. This is something that the IPL GC should be kind enough to look into as we would love to start on the front foot and set the momentum early into the season,” the official told IANS.