Nine years after we saw 10 team fight it for the Indian T20 League title, the Board for Control in India (BCCI) is mulling the option of adding two more teams to the existing eight teams for the upcoming season.
"We discussed increasing the number of teams, but it was an informal discussion. Anyway the teams don't have the authority to decide on the matter, the BCCI will have to take a call but we are open to the idea," a team official, who attended the meeting between the franchise owners and the league's other stakeholders in London last week, told PTI.
Another official also confirmed that the expansion was discussed in the meeting. "There was a discussion, but it was done at an informal level. There is no concrete plan as of now on how to go about it. More teams will lead to more games which could mean a bigger scheduling window. So, all of that needs to be worked out," said the official.
2011 was the last time the Indian T20 League saw 10 teams in action when the BCCI included Kochi and Pune to the existing franchises’ list. However, contractual issues between the board and the Kochi franchise meant that the team was discontinued a season later, while the Pune team — owned by Sahara India Pariwar — pulled out in 2013, leaving the league just the eight teams who have been a part of the competition from its very inception.
The 2016 and the 2017 season also saw new teams — Gujarat and Pune — being included after Chennai and Rajasthan were banned following the spot fixing scandal. But that contract expired after two years and the two banned sides were welcomed back into the fold in 2018. Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of Pune franchise which reached the 2017 final in only its second attempt, had expressed to remain invested beyond the two-year period.
Feature image courtesy: AFP Photo/ Prakash Singh
