The Board of Control for Cricket in India [BCCI] is considering the options to expand its biggest money-spinner Indian Premier League (IPL). The Board is reportedly looking to re-utilize the two-month window in September-October which was left vacant after the postponement of the Champions League T20. CLT20 was an inter-franchise annual T20 tournament, co-owned by the BCCI, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa.
The tournament involved leading T20 teams from across the world competing against each other. However, it failed to attract a huge amount of the crowd which led to the tournament was disbanded and the last edition was played in 2014. According to minutes of BCCI Annual General Meeting, accessed by the Indian Express, the Indian bode is considering of getting back their two-month window and stage a mini-IPL in it.
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AS per the quotes in the Indian Express, Hemang Amin, Indian Premier League’s chief officer informed the IPL GC said, “The Champions League (CLT20) used to be played during the Sep/Oct window of around 15-20 days, however, CLT20 has discontinued five years ago, the last event being the CLT20-2014. The Asia Cup, which is another event hosted every alternate year, was generally played during June, however, after CLT20 was discontinued the Asia Cup is now played during the CLT20 window of Sep/Oct and ICC has also scheduled the T20 World Cup in 2020 (Australia) and 2021 (India) around the same time.”
He further added, “Since the Sep/Oct was CLT20 window, BCCI should look at utilizing this as a 2nd IPL window so the existing teams can have a longer participation instead of the two months and this will also entail that BCCI creates a new revenue stream which will be beneficial for the teams, BCCI and extension of brand IPL.”
The IPL Governing Council also had a lengthy discussion on whether the franchises should be allowed to play friendlies with associate ICC members in the month of July-August. However, Amin informed GC that the friendlies can be played among IPL teams instead of playing against ICC associate members.
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The official added, “Till date, no such friendlies have been played, however, a number of teams have requested that IPL teams be allowed to play IPL friendlies against each other at an overseas location instead of playing against an ICC associate member.”
