Australian version of IPL?

[aussie1st]

Cricket Australia look to be keen on developing some sort of competition similar to the IPL. Some of the ideas being floated about are:

# A SALARY cap - perhaps between $10 million and $15 million per team;
# ICON players for each team. For instance, Brad Hodge and Cameron White would be the "untouchables" for Victoria; Michael Clarke and Brett Lee for New South Wales; and Mitchell Johnson and Matthew Hayden for Queensland;
# A PLAYER draft, which could feature international talent;
# TEAMS from major cities and country areas, and one from New Zealand.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,23700436-23212,00.html

For me it'll be hard supporting players from Victoria or Queensland playing for NSW. The International draft might be alright but like the IPL we will have the problem of who they play for come the domestic 20/20 WC.

Other problem is the length of the tournament, our current structure fits in perfectly, if we follow the IPL then we're have 2 months of 20/20. Certainly can't see Australians watching a 20/20 match every day, weekends would be the only way to go for this.

 

[.::Stevo::.]

Horrbile idea. No one would turn up.....

 

[angryangy]

Vic Country and Metro sides like in junior football would get some backing. You could do something similar for all the east coast states. You could add territory sides, but drafting teams for them would be harder. In another football comparison, you could SoE players back to where they came from.

Melbourne
Sydney
Brisbane
Adelaide
Perth
Hobart
Darwin
Canberra
Newcastle
Cairns/North Qld
Geelong/Vic Country
New Zealand

Dunno how many teams is too many. A two month comp is certainly too long.

 

[Niv]

That list is five too many.

 

[khalek]

one tournament like IPL is enough... pakistan is also trying make something like that... wonder why domestic cricket is being given so much attention!!!

 

[angryangy]

That list is five too many.

A seven team tournament is really bad planning.

 

[Niv]

oops, I meant four XD

8 is probably the maximum.

But yeah, hope this idea crashes and burns.

 

[Gilly Fan]

No. Don't want it. First, no crowds will turn up after the first couple of games, and 2nd it will be crap.

 

[Kev]

one tournament like IPL is enough... pakistan is also trying make something like that... wonder why domestic cricket is being given so much attention!!!

What you fail to realise is that outside of India and perhaps outside of this and a few other forums there is very little interest in IPL as its an Indian domestic competition. I talked to a fair few English cricket fans (fans of domestic cricket) and most know very little about IPL, I guess the situation is much the same in Australia. So the fact that there is an APL or whatever you want to call it really makes no difference to the IPL, apart from if players start chosing between the two. IPL, EPL and APL would have their own audiences.

The main problem I foresee is exactly the same problem that any proposed league in England would have - that is there just isn't the fanatical interest in cricket that there is in India so I doubt there will be megabucks tv deals (which afterall is how the money is mostly made) as people just wont watch that amount of cricket. It really makes me laugh that almost everyone moaned about the length of the World Cup and said there were too many matches and yet they describe IPL as innovative and interesting where it is just T20 cricket jazzed up a bit. Personally I would watch a long domestic competition (based in my home country, as long as it didn't involve made up franchise teams) but I would say I would be in the minority of English people.

 

[angryangy]

From what I've heard, at the IPL, the spectator attendance misrepresents actual gate takings. They fill them up because it looks good on TV. IPL is about TV rights. The question is whether a high profile tournament has to be in India to capitalise on Indian money.

 

[Kev]

Very probably if you packed another domestic tournament with Indian stars, you could sell it to Indians for big bucks. The question is, would you want to do that in Australia? Certainly for me any tournament in England should put its home players first as they are the future of cricket. I think this whole ?PL thing is being driven along way too fast and it needs to slow down a bit. The problem is its being driven by investors and TV companies who don't have the interests of the game at heart, they are interested in short term financial gain only. If they wreck Cricket, they don't really care, they'll move on and invest big in something else.

 

[aussie1st]

Vic Country and Metro sides like in junior football would get some backing. You could do something similar for all the east coast states. You could add territory sides, but drafting teams for them would be harder. In another football comparison, you could SoE players back to where they came from.

Melbourne
Sydney
Brisbane
Adelaide
Perth
Hobart
Darwin
Canberra
Newcastle
Cairns/North Qld
Geelong/Vic Country
New Zealand

Dunno how many teams is too many. A two month comp is certainly too long.

Certainly would be strange having someone like KP play for Darwin. 8 definitely is the maximum but I still feel our current format is spot on. If we let International players come in then we wouldn't be able to let many youngsters if any play. A number of youngsters last season were able to leave their mark on 20/20 and thus thrush them into the spotlight for selection in the OD and FC teams.

 

[India2011]

Well, it depends how popular the IPL is in Australia. Either way, it wouldn't be very succesful, since cricket in Australia isn't popular in the sense that not many people watch it - I might be mistaken, though.

 

[Niv]

Theres not many people here full stop!

 

[angryangy]

T20 does gate well, but there's not really anything on the table that improves on that without being a self indulgent farce.