Indian gamers in overseas leagues? IPL chair Arun Dhumal clears the air

It is not uncommon to see IPL franchise owners increasing the numbers of teams under their umbrella. In the ILT20, there is Dubai Capitals, MI Emirates, and Abu Dhabi Knight Riders. Then in SA20, there is Pretoria Capitals, MI Cape Town, Joburg Super Kings, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, Durban Super Giants, and Paarl Royals.

In the CPL, one can see the presence of Barbados Royals, Trinbago Knight Riders, and Saint Lucia Kings. This makes it clear that the BCCI is pretty supportive of the IPL franchise owners to expand the team base. In fact, there could be more in the pipeline, with The Hundred coming, and four owners already in the process of finalising the investment in their teams.

But then, as far as the Indian male players are concerned, there is no discussion over, if they will be allowed to play in the foreign leagues. IPL chairman Arun Dhumal confirmed the same to ESPNCricinfo on Wednesday.

“We are very happy with the contributions that our franchises, enterprises and companies have done to grow this game across the globe,” he said. “India being in this leadership position and cricket being a religion for Indians, it is our paramount duty to make sure that India’s contribution in terms of growing the game across the globe remains. We are very happy with that,” he said.

“IPL being a premium tournament, that exclusivity would definitely be there… There is nothing that has been discussed so far. Going forward, in case there’s scope, then before we arrive at some decision we have to take all of these considerations and then take a call on this.”

It is important to note that the Indian women players actively take part in the WBBL, but their male counterparts aren’t allowed to do so. In fact, some franchises offer to train Indian players in these leagues, but due to rules can’t play them. Classic example is MI’s Vignesh Puthur attending net session in SA20 for MI Cape Town.

Meanwhile, a couple of days earlier, Dhumal had also hinted that the BCCI will seriously consider the expansion of IPL to a home and away tournament, where a total of 94 matches would be played. This could be decided by the next media-rights cycle in 2028.

“Definitely, that might be an opportunity,” Dhumal said. “We’ve been discussing in ICC, we’ve been discussing in-house in BCCI. Given how the interest of the fan is changing with regard to bilateral and ICC events, in regard to franchise cricket and T20 cricket, we’ll have to talk more seriously about it and see how we can create maximum value for the stakeholders of the game.