The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has made it official that India’s marquee T20 tournament, Indian Premier League (IPL) will consist of 10 teams from the 2022 edition.
The interested buyers can buy the tender till October 5, the BCCI said in a media release. The IPL Governing Council will carry out a technical evaluation after the submission of the bids and later come to any decision in this respect.
“The minimum base price for each of the new franchises will be INR 2000 Crore [USD 270 million approx] and there are six cities in the queue which includes Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, and Cuttack,” said ESPNcricinfo.
The launch of the bidding process will begin from Tuesday. The BCCI has not revealed all the details such as whether the bids would be made via sealed envelope or an e-auction, and the date by which it would unveil the name of the two new franchises.
“Any interested bidder is allowed to pick more than one bid document, which costs INR 10 lakhs, but would be allowed to own only one franchise,” BCCI pointed out.
The decision to include two more franchises was finalised by the IPL Governing Council on Monday. It has also been learnt that the BCCI has been contemplating the move for the last two years.
At its annual general meeting in December 2020, the BCCI got the approval with the support of the members of the state associations to move forward on this.
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IPL 2022 to follow 2011 format; to have 74 games
The 2022 edition will be the second season of the league in which 10 teams will compete to win the title. It had happened earlier as well when Pune Warrior India (PWI) and Kochi Tuskers Kerala (KTK) participated in the league sometime back in 2011.
It is confirmed that the tournament will follow the 2011 model which will include a total of 74 league matches [including both home and away games] and play offs.
How did the teams play their games in IPL 2011
In 2011, the 10 teams were split into two loose groups where they played 70 league games and four play off matches. During the league phase, every team played 14 games.
Every team played the other four teams in their group both at home and away (eight matches), four of the teams in the other group one time each (four matches, either home or away), and the remaining team in the other group twice, both home and away.
A random draw decided the composition of the groups as well as who will be playing whom across the groups once and twice. The last time more than eight teams played was in 2013 when nine teams participated and a total of 76 matches were played.
The BCCI last conducted a bidding for new franchises in 2015 when Rising Pune Supergiants replaced one of the successful teams of the Indian Premier League, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Gujarat Lions replaced Rajasthan Royals.
CSK and RR were suspended for two editions, 2016 and 2017 after facing corruption charges. These two teams made a comeback in IPL 2018 which was won by CSK.
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