IPL owners for hike in pay cap

Reduced to being spectators in the last three months with the cricket board busy sorting out the Indian Premier League (IPL) mess that followed Lalit Modi’s suspension, the franchise owners finally got an opportunity to put forth their views on Thursday.

In their first meeting with the BCCI’s top brass without the suspended IPL chairman in Mumbai, the franchisees demanded, among other things, that the IPL increase the salary cap available to them in the players’ auction later this year, and that the current format of the tournament is not tinkered with.

With the addition of two new teams — Pune and Kochi — from the next season, the 60-game event will become a 94-game one.

The board had initially planned to reduce the number of games by splitting the teams into two groups, with a total of 68 matches. But most of the franchisees say they want the existing format of home and away games to be retained.

“The franchisees are of the view that the current format should be retained, with one home game and one away,” Royal Challengers Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya said after the meeting, which was attended by BCCI president, Mr Shashank Manohar and IPL interim chief Chirayu Amin.

“There were suggestions to restrict the schedule to 10 matches (per franchise). But our view is that we would like the earlier format to continue... Our revenues will take a hit if the number of games are decreased,” he added.

The owners also suggested that all players should go into the auction pool (no player is retained), and that the salary cap be raised to $9 million from $7 million.