The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : BCCI for one-year IPL contract for u-22 and 19 players

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BCCI for one-year IPL contract for u-22 and 19 players

G. Viswanath

Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to get proactive following reports that Indian Premier League (IPL) agents were chasing a handful of India under-19 players at the ICC under-19 World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.

Annoyed and upset, the BCCI has decided to offer the under-22 and under-19 players to the franchisees only for one year.

The BCCI has also come to know that even coaches of juniors have started to bargain with franchisees and hence it has informed them that they should not consider the under-22 and 19 players directly and also advised them to adhere to the rules to pick players from the catchment area of a particular zone.

Moreover the BCCI does not want to be in a situation wherein the franchisees find the basket full without scope for recruiting fresh players for the 2009 competition.

Base price

The IPL has fixed a base price of $50,000 for the Ranji Trophy players and $20,000 for those who have not played the Ranji Trophy.

But since majority of the under-22 and under-19 players have played in the national championship, they would be offered a higher price, but the franchisees will be allowed to offer them only a one-year (season) contract.

The one-year rule will not apply to Ranadeb Bose, Cheteshwar Pujara, S. Badrinath, Aakash Chopra and Praveen Kumar, all BCCI contracted players, but not placed at the auction. It’s up to the franchisees to consider them and determine the type of contract they would like to offer.

Transfer window

A BCCI official rationalised the one-year rule (for under-22 and under-19 players) saying: “There will not be an auction next year, the transfer window will open in February 2009 and 75 players have already been offered a three-year contract. We don’t know if all the Indians placed for auction will be offered a BCCI contract in October 2008.

“A franchise owner will have an opportunity during the transfer month, but it should also have options to recruit fresh players (Ranji Trophy, under-22 and under-19), on the basis of their performance in the 2008-09 season. The franchisees will have the advantage of the $ 5 million upper end cap on salary removed from the next season.”

Franchise owners are obliged to pick at least for under-22 players in their squad of 16 from their designated catchment area. Emerging Media (owner of Jaipur region) may not find talented under-22 players in their catchment area and hence an exception may be made, but all for one-year.

All this means that at least 32 players (under-22) will be offered a one-year contract.

What’s surprised a few observers is that franchisees have offered a three-year contract to players who would be approaching the age of 40 by 2010.

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