Indian Premier League president Arun Dhumal has pledged to work together with the BCCI to establish a pay gap between players and avoid disparity during auctions, especially mini auctions. Dhumal made this statement while speaking in a recent interview in the light of Mitchell Starc leaving with a whopping deal of Rs 24.75 crore with two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders.
Arun Dhumal did not like what happened during the player auctions for the 2024 season held at the Coca-Cola Stadium in Dubai on December 19 last year. There, Australian duo Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins landed two of the most lucrative deals in history: the first went to KKR and the second to Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Arun Dhumal says there will be new policies to avoid pay disparity in future
While Mitchell Starc got a deal of Rs 24.75 crore, Cummins got Rs 20.5 crore and that created a huge indifference in terms of pricing between local and foreign players. Fans on social media started trolling Kolkata and Hyderabad for paying such huge amounts to foreign players and ruling out paying the same amounts to the local boys.
To prevent such things from going ahead, Arun Dhumal revealed that new policies are going to be drawn up to abolish the issue and any step will be taken only after consideration with all the IPL franchises.
“We have taken note of the pay disparity it creates. We will definitely conduct a review and come up with a new policy to address the issue. Some ideas have emerged. “We will also discuss it with the franchises before making further decisions.” – said Dhumal via Hindustan Times.
Arun Dhumal then indicated that there will possibly be a limit on player purchases and that franchises will refrain from paying amounts above a set limit. For example, in mini-auctions, we could see that franchises are required not to cross the Rs 20 million mark and ensure that players have less than that amount.
But it can also create a bit of contention as franchises sometimes don’t want to let go of a player, who they think could be a major part of the plan like KKR and SRH did with Mitchell Starc and Cummins. Arun Dhumal then explained that in case new franchises are introduced in the tournament, it will be impossible for them to form a team and also shed light on the player retention process.
“When new franchises arrive, how would they form their team? In a competition as attractive as the IPL, people have to focus on thinking. We offer the option of retaining 3 to 4 players to the teams.” – concluded Arun Dhumal.