By: Tarish Bhatt
The two news Indian Premier League (IPL) teams for next two years may have to go through a ‘draft system’ to pick the best players from the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals. Sources said that the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) is mulling to put in use ‘the draft system’ as one of the options to distribute the top cricketers from suspended teams (CSK & RR).
Which means a high-profile player like MS Dhoni may have to go through this ‘draft system’ to get picked in one of the two new teams. According to the BCCI sources, the bigwigs of the board had an informal discussion to this effect in Mumbai on Sunday, but there will be a more clarity on it when the BCCI meets again in days to come.
Sources also said that board may propose the names of top five cricketers for the draft system (lottery) with pre-determined salaries while the rest of the players could be in the Indian Premier League auction list. “It will be certainly a huge incentive for the two new proposed teams to pick a player of Dhoni’s caliber,” an insider told Drcricket7 on Monday.
As reported by Drcricket7 earlier, some of the top BCCI bigwigs are against making a 10-team Indian Premier League from 2018 season. To them, the 2018 IPL should continue as an eight-team affair. If that happens, it will be interesting to see what happens to Dhoni then.
Will he be back in the IPL auction pool or will he allowed to be a part of CSK? Source said that some of the top IPL GC members have already suggested it in the earlier meetings that every IPL team should be allowed to retain at least two Indians and two foreigner cricketers before the big auction for the 2018 season.
“We will cross the bridge when it comes. The members and the IPL teams will keep suggesting several things, but the board will only decide on it when time comes,” a source close to the development told Drcricket7.
Footnote: The draft system of pre-determined salaries, with performance incentives, works better than an auction because it rewards players more fairly.
