Monday, June 20, 2011

Sri Lanka Premier League starts without Auctions

The Sri Lankan Premier League (SLPL) is set to be played from 19 July to 4 August in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Premier League is the newest addition to the growing number of Twenty20 leagues across the world. By the design of the format of the tournament, it is appeared that Sri Lankan Cricket does not have sufficient resources to hold auctions for so many overseas players. But, for this tournament, SLC will call some international players.

No Auction for Sri Lanka Premier League as IPL

SLPL includes 7-teams and each team will play one match and the top four teams will be eligible for the Semi-Finals but some aspects such as squads for the event, etc. are unknown yet. All matches of the SLPL tournament will be played at the Premadasa Stadium, Colombo and winner of this tournament will be eligible for the Champions League T20. The Sri Lankan Premier League will be an inter-provincial tournament different from the IPL. Seven participating provinces of the country such as Nagenahira, Basnahira, Kandurata, Uthura, Ruhuna, Uva and Wayamba, will be represented by seven teams.

The domestic players have been assigned for their home regions by SLC for increasing the interest of public. The teams will get the local support and more viewers are likely to turn up for the matches by this step of SLC. The size of a team will be between 16 and 18 and every team will have no less than seven domestic and a maximum of four international players whereas one domestic player must be from the Under-21 team. Each squad will have the right to select a mentor or coach from former Sri Lankan players.

The international players will be assigned by SLC’s selection committee to each team according to teams’ requirements but players will not be put up for auction. Similar to IPL, SLPL does not contain open auction and the squads will not have independence to choose players at their own discretion. Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Herschelle Gibbs, Shahid Afridi, Daniel Vettori, Daniel Christian, and Kevin O’Brien are the international players, who possibly participate in this tournament.

SLPL teams include four international players in which Pakistani players can be included, who were excluded from the IPL after the first season. International players will earn between US$10,000-35,000 each in the first season, and this number is anticipated to considerably raise in future editions. All teams of SLPL will be under a sole “owner”, who will also be the executive, legislature and judiciary of the league, similar to IPL.

The suggested SLPL allotment process has a number of intrinsic dangers:
  • The lack of partition between a player of franchise selection and strategic decision, which is making on the one hand, and the decision made by the governing council of the league on the other could lead to conflicts of interest.
  • There is a danger quality of competition will undergo, if selection and remuneration of player are not linked to performance.
  • When the possession and the governance council are overlapping or synonymous, there could be suspicions about the authenticity of match results.
  • As the SLPL is possibly be the least lucrative of all the Twenty20 leagues worldwide, it will likely need systems to tackle mass dropouts or other problems taking place from last-minute postponement of international fixtures.

A successful player-allotment system requires a transparent process, and has to promote balance and equality among teams. A draft system will be considered for player selection by the SLPL and other Twenty20 leagues in future. A list of players, who have made themselves available for selection, will be provided more than a month in advance to the franchises by the league’s central office under the draft system.

As per some sources, auction possibly appears attractive, but it is not as capable or as fair as a draft. Squads are not allowed to formulate and perform the best probable strategies by auction. Players also do not get rewards as per their performance in auction.

Video of Get Ready For the Sri Lankan Premier League - SLPL T20 From SLPLT20.Co from youtube:

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