Indian Premier Leagues’s two latest additions Ahmedabad and Lucknow have been handed a deadline of January 22 to complete their signings. Each of these two franchises have the opportunity to draft three players among the ones who are not retained by the existing eight franchises, out of which they can pick a maximum of one overseas cricketer.
“They have time till 5 pm on January 22 to complete their signings,”
Cricbuzz quoted a BCCI official as saying on Wednesday.
This deadline has been set after formally approving the CVC Capital Partners and RPSG group as the new owners.
CVC Partners’ involvement with some betting agencies delayed this procession for them, but they have received all possible clearances to be part of the IPL. The firm had invested on the IPL team through its Asian arm and it has no association with the ones which have invested in betting companies.
This isn’t the first time the RPSG group will be involved with the tournament. They previously owned the now-defunct Rising Pune Super Giant, which came in as a substitute for two years when Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings served a suspension for their involvement in a betting scandal. Ahmedabad went for INR 5,625 crore, whilst Lucknow went for a whopping INR 7,090 crore.
It is rumoured that the Ahmedabad franchise will be drafting Rashid Khan, Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya. Lukcnow are reportedly targeting KL Rahul as captain, there is no confirmation as to how far they have come to convince the player, who is also seeking to be in the auction.
The IPL will return to being a 10-team affair for the first time since 2011, when two new franchises in Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Pune Warriors India were added to the roster. The Kochi franchise existed for just one year, whilst Pune Warriors bowed out after the 2013 edition.
The tournament was conducted majorly outside India in the last two editions due to the growing threat of the ongoing pandemic. However, IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla mentioned that there are works going on in the background to ensure the entire tournament is conducted in India.
