Why IPL needs more teams and lesser number of matches

So the 7th edition of the Indian Premier League is underway and we had the Delhi Daredevils taking on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the second game.

When I saw the team sheets, I was in for a surprise. There was no Kedar Jadhav, the highest run-getter in this season’s Ranji Trophy and more importantly, someone who was bought for 2 crores in the auctions. He wasn’t in the eleven for their next two games as well. You don’t spend 2 crores on an uncapped player and make him sit in the dugout!

Every franchise has players who deserve to be in the playing 11 but are rather benched. Teams have these players as backup in case of injuries to some of their star players, but we the fans are deprived of seeing them in action and also as players, they simply want to be part of the action without a doubt.

In this case, having more teams would help and also playing lesser league matches would prevent injuries.

Big players missing out

Apart from Jadhav, there were two promising young Indian pacers, Unadkat and Rahul Shukla and a certain Saurabh Tiwary who was bought for 1.6 million dollars by RCB during the previous grand auction.

If you move over to the Kings XI Punjab, you will notice that Mandeep Singh (IPL 2012’s young player of the season) and Manan Vohra, who was actually retained by the franchise prior to the auction, don’t have a spot left for them.

In Rajasthan’s case, Delhi dasher Unmukt Chand was expected to take over the spot left vacant by Dravid. But so far, they have sprung a surprise by having Abhishek Nayar open the innings. He hasn’t looked good yet, so Chand looks likely to win his spot back sooner. But other than that, there aren’t any big players missing out from that squad since they are the only team who play with 4 or 5 uncapped Indians.

Kolkata Knight Riders haven’t used Umesh Yadav yet and surprisingly, Mumbai Indians don’t really have a strong bench strength. The same can be mentioned about CSK as the only quality batsman on that bench is the youngster Baba Aparajith who looks like a long term replacement for Badrinath in the squad.

RCB haven’t used the promising Vijay Zol yet and the Sunrisers have many Indian bowlers in their squad like Irfan Pathan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Karan Sharma, Ishant Sharma and Parvez Rasool to choose from.

Overseas bench warmers

Not only we miss out on the Indian players but also there are several overseas players who are warming the benches.

Young South African keeper De Kock won’t probably get a game for now and Ross Taylor is all set to sit out once Pietersen returns for the Daredevils.

Shaun Marsh is the most successful batsman in Punjab’s history and he doesn’t have a spot. With Maxwell, Miller, Bailey playing, it’s highly unlikely that he will play. There is also Thisara Perera in that squad who was a vital cog for the Sunrisers last season.

Ryan Ten Doeschate looks like he will go one more season warming the KKR bench. Will Chris Lynn and Pat Cummins give him company?

Time to have 10 teams again

Having two new teams will allow these players to play rather than carrying drinks. Not just these players, if you take a look at the players who haven’t been bought by any team in the auction, some names will really surprise you.

Alex Hales entered the auction as the World’s no.1 T20 batsman, but he went unsold. It was understandable that the franchisees didn’t go for some of the Sri Lankan players since they tour England during the IPL. But remember, those players will be back next year and with an additional tag of ‘World Champions’ in this format.

Also you can expect the likes of Praveen Kumar, Badrinath and a few more local Indian players to be in the fray since they went unsold this time surprisingly.

Smaller League Phase

Having lesser matches would be beneficial for everyone. When you play with 10 teams, each team can play each other once which would mean there would be 45 matches in the league phase as opposed to 56 now. We would lose out on not more than 11 matches.

This will ensure that there is no player burnout. Having the players play so many matches in the IPL in a short window isn’t advisable, especially for the Indian players who play non-stop Cricket throughout the year.

When the IPL had 16 league games, there were times at the end of the league phase where even the public got a feeling that this is getting dragged a bit. You don’t want that kind of a feeling to creep in to the most spectator friendly format.

If these changes have to happen, then a fresh complete auction needs to take place again like it happened this time. That won’t make the fans happy, but if it can provide the stability for the coming years, then it should be welcomed.