The Tamil Nadu cricket fans feel they are barred from watching IPL going into the stadium after their franchise Chennai Super Kings suspended for two years as their team principal found guilty of spot-fixing. Now the angry state is set to have its own T20 league in August September 2016.
The apex court order may have kept former BCCI president N. Srinivasan away from the Indian cricket board , but he is back with Tamil Nadu Premier League.
The tournament will be formulated as the IPL function. Total eight franchises will play the tournament. A players draft will happen in July, salary caps, anti-corruption unit and of course, the matches will be broadcasted line on local TV channel Star India. Tamil Nadu Cricket Association president Srinivasan has ensured a broadcasting deal with Star group.
Eight teams were identified after bidding process in Chennai Thursday. It fetched the TNCA a neat Rs 33 crores with Thoothukudi Sports & Entertainments Private Limited making the highest bid of INR 5.21 crore for the ownership rights of the Thoothukudi team.
A players draft will be held in July where the state’s cricketers will get an opportunity to make a quick buck. Tamil Nadu’s big-ticket international players like Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik, and Ravichandran Ashwin may play depending on their availability.
“We are not going to have an auction,” Srinivasan said. “Whoever has bid the highest will get the first pick of players listed and it will keep repeating from one to eight (players) and again starting from one. We are going to suggest a modest salary cap, around Rs 60 lakh and see how it develops.”
TNCA is obviously careful about match-fixing and betting. Chennai Super Kings are serving a two-year ban because their team official Gurunath Meiyappan (Srinivasan’s son-in-law) was involved in betting.
Srinivasan is confident CSK will return to IPL in 2018. He said Chennai’s image hasn’t suffered and “CSK will come in without any external intervention.”