Designate slot for IPL every year, suggests ACA

ACA Chief Paul Marsh said T20 competition had gripped world cricket and administrators needed to embrace the new product.

With the collective cost of the Indian Premier League franchises predicted to be ‘over five times’ in next five years, the Australian Cricket Association feels it is important to have a ‘designated slot’ for the competition to prevent conflict with Test or one-day cricket.

ACA Chief Paul Marsh, after his recent ‘IPL fact-finding mission in India’, said the Twenty20 competition had gripped world cricket and administrators needed to embrace the new product.

“What I saw with my own eyes when I went to India was a tournament that had gripped an entire nation. It was on the front page of just about every newspaper, every day, and the spectator and television numbers were enormous,” Marsh said.

Story continues below this ad

“The solution to any problems involving the IPL is to put the competition in a designated slot where it can be played every year without clashes with other cricket,” he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.

The report claimed that the collective value of the $765 million IPL franchises has been tipped to surpass $4 billion mark over the next five years as global interest in the competition goes up.

The $5 million salary cap for each franchise is set to be abolished, which could lead to extraordinary player contracts of up to $15 million.