Whole IPL Teams for Sale...almost

Auction prices set to rocket

    Rohit Sharma ‘broke ranks’ from the IPL cabal this week by admitting that he was not a fan of the ‘Impact Player’ rule being used in the tournament “purely for the sake of entertainment.” He is one of only a handful of players who could get away with telling the truth without it hurting him. Perhaps he doesn’t care if it does.

    He said cricket was a game meant to be played between 11 players. It has, by and large, been that way for a couple of centuries. Every time an experiment has been tried, and most domestic competitions have dabbled with ‘substitutes’, it has been abandoned after a year or two.

    The Indian T20 captain may be a purist at heart but his reasons were practical rater than aesthetic. The Indian team was being hurt by the ‘innovation’ because, in most games, an all rounder was only using one of his skills with the other job being done by the extra specialist.

    It may be pushing it, even for Rohit, to comment on two controversial subjects but it would be fascinating to know what his views are on the triennial Mega Auction in which every team is compelled to put many of their most prized and precious assets up for sale. Next year it might be nearly all of them.

    Most followers of sporting leagues and competitions outside India are bewildered by the concept of disbanding all of the teams so often. It is bizarre.

    The majority of the leading Indian players have already played for three or four different Franchises in the last dozen years of the IPL. It doesn’t appear to matter to Indian fans, but it’s confusing to the rest of the world which the IPL regards as important.

    For the last couple of ‘Mega Auctions’ teams have been permitted to retain four players. Four out of a squad of 25+. They have also had a ‘Right to Match’ (RTM) option in which case they could keep another player provided they matched the price of the highest bidder.

    The proposal for next year is that there is just ONE retained player but that the number of RTMs is increased to seven or eight. Proponents of this move suggest that it will determine a more accurate ‘market price’ for the best and most sought after players, but there is also an element of cynicism to it.

    Although they are accustomed to rebuilding the majority of their squad every three years, the successful Franchises also know that a stable core of players is vital to continued success. At least, the coaches do. For the team owners, it’s only about prestige and winning, which they believe can be bought. And if it can’t be, then at least ensure that your opposition can’t buy it either.

    So, once each team has retained their ‘golden boy’ – as much for their off-field commercial value as for their on-field performances – they will have to pay whatever their rivals believe their next best players are worth in order to keep them.

    Each team’s coaching staff know exactly which players are most important to the others. Phoney bidding wars will inevitably occur in order to destabilise the overall wage cap of the Franchise desperate to use one of its RTM options.

    Let’s say Mumbai Indians decide to retain only Rohit next year, or their captain, Hardik Pandya. That would leave the world’s best bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, on the ‘open market’. Mumbai would break the bank to keep him. The other teams know that so a game of ‘chicken develops with bids soaring towards $5million. Then they all stop leaving Mumbai with their player and at least $3million less to spend on other players.

    Heinrich Klaasen is the most sought-after middle overs batsman in the competition but Sunrisers Hyderabad would be unlikely to use their single retention for him. The bidding war for him could be monstrous. He’d be keen to stay in Hyderabad, of course, but a couple of million dollars would soften the blow of a move elsewhere.

    There are also hidden dynamics to a player’s performance which are impossible to predict. Much as Klaasen, the professional, would back himself to repeat his match-winning feats in a different team, how much effect does sharing a change-room – and a lot of crease time – with his childhood best friend, Aiden Markram, have on him?

    Two years ago, Chennai Super Kings gambled on ‘releasing’ Faf du Plessis into the mega auction and buying him back. He was, after all, part of the yellow furniture after a decade and would be a tough ‘fit’ for another team. But Bangalore really needed a badass captain to take over from Virat Kohli and would not be deterred. So Faf was on his way to the perennial under-achievers.         

    The question being asked more and more frequently in the global, professional game is: ‘If you’re not making as much money as possible, what the hell are you doing?’ That’s fair enough. It applies in capitalist markets everywhere, and there is a human cost, but when stockbrokers and traders have mental or emotional breakdowns it is seen as inevitable collateral damage.

    Given the natural vicissitudes and unfairnesses of cricket, I’m not sure the industry will be as robust in coping with its major employees working only for money and being treated primarily as commodities. 

    Not everyone who paints or writes poems does so for money. Not everybody who sings, dances or acts does so to maximise their earning potential above the quality of their craft and the satisfaction they derive from delivering it to an audience.

    This might be an out-dated philosophy. Perhaps the professional sport and its players will prove themselves to be impervious to the trading. Maybe the game will move closer to the model of American sports where the majority of careers last only a few years and players left on the mental and physical scrapheap have the consolation of being millionaires. We’ll see.