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IPL: $30,000 cap for under-19 players

Special Correspondent

Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has fixed an IPL fee of $30,000 for the India Under-19 players who won the ICC World Cup in Kuala Lumpur. The 15 players and the six standbys will be offered on lots for one season to the eight franchisees here on Tuesday.

Clearly, the BCCI and the IPL governing council has taken into account the Rs. 15 lakh bonus awarded to the players for winning the Under-19 World Cup in Kuala Lumpur before determining the limit for the juniors.

The decision to impose a cap is in order to prevent agents and coaches from negotiating terms with the players and the franchisees.

Allotment by lots will make it a game of chance for the franchisees and it will be interesting to know which of the teams will win the services of the likes of captain Virat Kohli, Pradeep Sangwan (Delhi), Tanmay Srivastav (Uttar Pradesh), Siddharth Kaul (Punjab) and Iqbal Abdullah (Mumbai), who are likely to be the most sought after.

Not all of the players and the standbys will get into any of the eight teams.

A special category

Majority of the under-19 players have played in the Ranji Trophy competition, but the BCCI has decided to treat them as a special group.

“The intention is to separate the men from the boys in the first IPL series. It’s fair and I am willing to go along with the BCCI decision.

“The IPL is going to be a premier league and one has to ascertain their true potential and value in the first year, how they face the pressure when given the opportunity. So it’s fair to limit the fee to $30,000,” said Charu Sharma, CEO of the Royal Challengers, Bangalore, owned by Vijay Mallya’s UB Group.

In the invitation to tender, the IPL had fixed a base fee of $20,000 for those who have not played the Ranji Trophy and $50,000 for those who have.

It is mandatory for each franchisee to choose four under-22 players in the squad.

“We have only two, so we will be picking two more from the under-19 lot,” said Sharma.

The franchisees have been told that another player will be added to the list of available players from the World Cup winning squad.

“The BCCI cannot pick a single player. So, I have advised them to bring the six standbys (into the lots) so that the franchisees will have the option of picking a batsman or a bowler,” said Mohinder Pandove, Joint Secretary, BCCI.

Auction on Tuesday

Meanwhile, the second round of the auction of players from Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh will also be held here on Tuesday.

The IPL’s governing council announced on Monday that franchises had to finalise their squads 30 days before the start of the 2008 season and the second international player auction would begin with a $50,000 bidding.

The auction has a fresh set of 25 players who have been centrally contracted by the BCCI and the franchisees have the option to contract these players on a one year basis.

The second set of international cricketers are Misbah-ul-Haq, Salman Butt, Mohammad Yousuf, Yasir Hameed, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohail Tanvir (all Pakistan), Kyle Mills, Jeetan Patel, James Franklin, Chris Martin, Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton, Jamie How (New Zealand), Brad Hodge, Shane Watson, James Hopes, Brett Geeves, Phil Jaques, Luke Pomerbach (Australia), Prasanna Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafe Mortaza, Abdur Razzak (Bangladesh), Morne Morkel and Ashwell Prince (South Africa).

Keen to take part

Over and above the centrally contracted pool of players, there are 12 other foreign players who have also conveyed their keen interest to participate in the inaugural season.

These players have not been contracted by the BCCI. They are Australians Shaun Tait, Brad Hogg, Darren Lehmann and West Indian Dwayne Smith.

Meanwhile, Chennai Super Kings has added Sri Lanka team physio Tommy Simsek to its support staff that already has Kepler Wessels as coach and Gregory King as physical trainer.

Royal Challengers, Bangalore, which has hired Martin Crowe and Venkatesh Prasad as strategist and bowling coach, is close to signing on Johannesburg-based physio Evan Speechley.

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