The chairman of the Indian Premier League, Arun Dhumal has pledged to work along with BCCI to put a pay gap on players to avoid disparity during auctions, especially in the mini ones. Dhumal made this claim while speaking in a recent interview in the light of Mitchell Starc walking away with an unbelievable 24.75 crore deal with 2-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders.
Arun Dhumal was not fond of the thing that happened during the player auctions for the 2024 season held in Dubai’s Coca-Cola arena on December 19th last year. Therein, Australian pace duo Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins bagged two of the most lucrative deals ever with the former going to KKR and the latter heading over to the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Arun Dhumal says there will be new policies to avoid pay disparity going forward
While Mitchell Starc earned a 24.75 crore deal, Cummins was splashed 20.5 crores and that created a major indifference in terms of pricing of local players and foreign players. Fans on social media started trolling Kolkata and Hyderabad for paying such hefty amounts on overseas players and discarding to pay the same amounts to the homegrown lads.
To avoid such things going ahead, Arun Dhumal revealed that new policies are going to be made to abolish the issue and that any step will be taken only after consideration with all IPL franchises.
“We have taken note of the pay disparity it creates. We will definitely conduct a review and come out with a new policy to address the issue. A few ideas have come in. We will discuss with the franchises as well before deciding further.” – Dhumal said via Hindustan Times.
Arun Dhumal then went on to indicate that there will possibly be a cap on player buys and that franchises will be refrained from paying amounts over a set limit. For example, in the mini-auctions, we might see franchises being obliged to not cross the 20 crore mark and make sure they players under that amount.
But it can also create a bit of dispute as franchises, at times do not want to let go of a player, who they think could be a main part of the plan like KKR and SRH did with Mitchell Starc and Cummins. Arun Dhumal then explained that in case new franchises get introduced to the tournament, it will be impossible for them to formulate a team and also shed light on the player retention process.
“When new franchises come in, how would they form their team? In an engaging competition like IPL, people must keep their thinking cap on. We offer the option of retaining 3 to 4 players to the teams.” – Arun Dhumal concluded.
