IPL council mulls reduction in evening matches

The first meeting of the revamped IPL governing council, headed by former India under-19 captain, Ranjib Biswal, took stock of the controversy-marred last edition and kicked off preparations for the franchises' workshop to be held in Singapore on November 28-29.

The governing council, which met at the BCCI headquarters on Sunday evening, discussed last year's accounts and TV ratings and compared it with that of preceding years. The documents will be presented to the eight team owners during the franchises workshop, an annual feature in the build-up of the event since 2009.

Meanwhile, the topic of whether to replace Pune Warriors in the forthcoming edition of IPL didn't come up for discussion since the matter was sealed during the BCCI working committee meeting on October 26. "The working committee had decided to go ahead with eight teams in the IPL, so that was not discussed at all," Biswal told ESPNcricinfo.

The BCCI on October 26 had terminated Pune Warriors' franchise agreement for non-payment of bank guarantee. Though the termination is likely to reduce BCCI's revenue to some extent, BCCI would be satisfied with a smaller event.

IPL 2014 will thus see a format similar to the one in 2010, where the tournament will see a total number of 60 matches spanned over six weeks. It may also result in a reduction of 4pm starts, which has been a concern for both advertisers and players. While the advertisers feel early matches don't attract eyeballs, players find it difficult to deal with the rising temperatures in April-May when the summer is at its peak in India.