The Indian Premier League is the most-watched cricketing event worldwide. The tournament is held every year between ten franchises named after Indian states and cities. The inaugural season was hosted in 2008 and since then, these teams have clashed with each other for the shining gold trophy. The tournament has had a history of producing exceptional cricket, with new and young talents being given a platform to represent themselves, and a stage for the older legends to make comebacks. It has been in news again post the remarks of BCCI secretary Jay Shah.
Jay Shah, in a presentation post the auction of media rights for IPL seasons 2023-2027, declared that the window for the IPL is going to be stretched from the current time limit to 2 and a half months, meaning the IPL is going to get much longer than it presently is. The announcement was welcomed by both domestic and international cricket fans.
The E-auction of the digital rights of IPL was a great success, as IPL managed to garner about ₹47000 crore from four sets of packages. This has made IPL the second richest international league globally. Now it is behind only the NBA when it comes to league revenue.
Jay Shah’s announcement, though, wasn’t received enthusiastically by the Pakistan Cricket Board or the PCB. The latter are in fear of the fact that if IPL is lengthened, the international series planned by the PCB will have to suffer extensively and will have to suffer heavy losses. A PCB source revealed that post-Jay Shah’s announcement, the PCB is worried about the international agenda of the Pakistan cricket team. There are discussions of taking this matter up to ICC and requesting it to intervene on PCB’s behalf.
On the other hand, Jay Shah was perfectly vocal in his speech that the BCCI has already had discussions with the ICC and other cricketing boards in this regard, and all matters were thereby cleared and ICC had no problems with the new plan.
Pakistani players only played the first season of the IPL, after which the PCB has banned them from participating in the league, hence creating more problems for cricket fans in Pakistan.
