Ten CSK, Royals players to go into draft

Five players from each of the two suspended teams, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, will be allowed to be picked by the two new franchises for the next two years of the IPL, which will continue to remain an eight-team tournament until 2017. The ten players will be picked through a draft system from a pool of 50, with the remaining names going into the auction. The original retention rule of allowing the franchises to pick a maximum of four capped Indian players will be applicable to the two new teams, too.

The IPL franchises were told about the decisions on Wednesday during a meeting with the BCCI in Delhi. The BCCI, franchises were informed, will finalise the terms and conditions for the bid document at the annual general meeting in Mumbai on November 9, and by the first half of December the two new franchises will be unveiled. At its working committee meeting on October 18, the BCCI had decided to invite bids for two new franchises after the Lodha committee, investigating the 2013 IPL corruption scandal, had suspended the owners of Super Kings and Royals in July.

Rajiv Shukla (IPL chairman), Anurag Thakur (BCCI secretary) and Sundar Raman (IPL chief operating officer) represented the BCCI while the franchises mostly sent their chief executives, with the exception of Kings XI Punjab, which was represented by Mohit Burman, one of the co-owners.

The BCCI also revealed that all major cities, barring the home cities of the six franchises, will be available for the successful bidders to choose from as their home venue.

According to a franchise official who attended the meeting, Chennai and Jaipur still remained firm favourites and that will be an advantage for the two new franchises. "It is logical [to include Chennai and Jaipur] because this arrangement is only for two years. It is a bit of the incentive for the two new temporary teams because the fan base is already established in these two cities."

Some of the franchises had expressed strong concerns over the league expanding into a ten-team event as that would automatically impact their valuation. "If somebody buys the new team for $100 million then that becomes the benchmark. In IPL there has never been a benchmark. So if in 2018 the IPL decides to stick to ten teams, then the new benchmark would be $100 million, around which the rest of us would need to hover," a franchise official said.

Another issue, the official pointed out, based on the experience in 2011 when the IPL was a ten-team event, was that the schedule went haywire with 74 matches, including several double-headers, leaving not just the franchises, but also the broadcasters and the BCCI in a lot of distress.

Franchises were also told that the two new franchise owners will be picked from the reverse bidding process, which means the investor who bids for the lowest share of the IPL's central revenue will get the ownership rights.