Opinion: IPL's reported 'Uncapped player rule' would be biased for CSK, confusing, and mostly pointless
What is retirement in cricket? Do cricketers write an email to their home boards, officially mentioning that they won't be available for selection anymore? Or is it just a black-and-white social media message with an emoji? If they delete that social media post a couple of months later, would they be considered not retired?
When they reverse their retirements and say they want to play again, do they write another email? Do they follow a format that's not taught in school?
When we don't have an answer to any of these questions, how can we, then, even start to decide on what should or shouldn't be considered enough time for a retired international player to be considered "uncapped", just for IPL purposes?
Feeling confused? Don't beat yourself up.
It is confusing. And that's the biggest red flag for any potential rule that can be applied in cricket.
For a sport that's still trying to grow, for its biggest league which is trying to be a phenomenon in the sporting world, you can't have confusing rules that push new fans away. More importantly, you can't have rules made for one player.
As per the media reports that have come out so far, that's the way it seems to be going. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is trying to bring back a rule, which allows players retired for more than five years to be considered "uncapped."
“There is a bright possibility of the rule coming back. It was discussed at length during the meeting last month and could well be brought back when the player regulations are announced," a BCCI source was quoted as saying by News18.
This rule was in place from IPL 2008-2021. In simple terms, it sets a player with no international experience equal in value to a player who has been retired for five years.
This created an interesting dynamic. An IPL franchise can only retain a few players ahead of every auction, in which, every capped player needs to be retained for a sum usually upwards of ₹7 crore while uncapped players can be held on to for around ₹4 crore.
The rule offered a big advantage to any team that was smart enough to use it. For example, if you could find a good player who was retired for a long time, you could retain five international-level players instead of four internationals and take a bet on a fifth player with no experience for his country.
But it was ultimately scrapped in 2021 because no one used it. There was no player who was retired for five years and not way past his prime.
Until MS Dhoni. Only, unfortunately, he happened to reach that stage of his career three years later.
So, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have pushed for the rule to be reinstated. They said as much in the meeting of the IPL owners at the end of July but faced a bigger pushback from the other nine teams.
Now, it seems, the BCCI has agreed to bring it up themselves anyway.
“I've no idea about it," CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan told the Times of India. "We've not requested for it. They (the BCCI) have themselves told us that the 'uncapped player rule' may be kept, that's all. They (the BCCI) haven't announced anything as yet. The rules and regulations will be announced by the BCCI."
Even if the BCCI are bringing the rule on their own accord, the conversations began through CSK. And the owners' meeting wasn't the last time.
CSK were quite open with their pressure
It has been clear that CSK have desperately wanted the rule to come back for a long time.
After the owners' meeting, reports started to come through -- which cited CSK sources -- saying that the franchise would only retain Dhoni if the IPL allowed more than four-five retentions.
They said the franchise and the former captain didn't want him to eat up a massive sum from their purse, so as to leave CSK with less wiggle room in the auction. And, they added, if they couldn't retain him, Dhoni won't go into the auction and retire, probably even joining the franchise as a mentor.
Dhoni himself hinted at the same thing recently.
"There is a lot of time for it," Dhoni said at an event in Hyderabad. "We have to see what decision they take on player retention etc. Right now, the ball is not in our court. So, once the rules and regulations get formalised, I will take a call, but needs to be in the best interest of the team."
Although the messaging from CSK is that it's the BCCI making the call, they have given the board an ultimatum: if you don't bring the rule back, the current biggest name in Indian cricket and the face of the IPL won't play another season and will go into an abrupt retirement.
Wittingly or unwittingly, that is putting pressure on the board to consider bringing the rule back. The board sells entertainment to broadcasters, who'd want to sell as much content on Dhoni as they could squeeze out.
If he retires without a big build-up, multiple shows and a farewell game that everyone would want to watch, it'd amount to massive losses. In the grand scheme of things it might not mean much, and there would be an understanding that they have to face Dhoni's departure at some point, but nobody hates money in cricket.
The question that comes up here is, would the board have considered it had it been a franchise like Delhi Capitals asking, for a lesser-markeable player, say, Ishant Sharma? The answer is probably not.
However you look at it, a player's marketability doesn't seem like a good enough reason to bend rules.
Will it be fair on other franchises?
That seems unlikely. Although rules are the same for everyone, no team builds itself considering that the board will come up with such a specific rule with a limited application out of nowhere.
The Impact Player was different. It was a big blanket change that caught every team off guard in the first season and then almost no team seemed unprepared in the next year.
If one franchise is asking for this rule, and others vehemently disagree then clearly only one team is ready for it. A rule being changed for one of the 10 teams and one of the 250 players, it's never a good look for a professional sporting league.
Dhoni is the greatest captain India has seen. He has given more to the country than most of those 250 and deserves the respect that comes with it.
But respect is subjective. If this rule comes through, shouldn't Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) get to demand the same privilege for Sunil Narine, who played his last T20I in 2019?
Narine can say he told his close friends he wanted to retire from T20Is at that time -- how's that any different from announcing it on social media? Can't the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) also question why five years, and why not three, so they could retain Faf du Plessis as an uncapped player?
That'll send us back to where we started -- what is retirement in cricket? The date of your debut is a fact, but how do you define retirement?
Even if other teams benefit from it somehow, this rule would be driven quite un-democratically and would be vulnerable to inconsistencies, confusion and redundancy as soon as Dhoni retires. This inability to let go of a legend, monetarily and emotionally, will only stop the IPL from becoming a more mature and pragmatic league.