IPL franchises will be able to trade players early next year ahead of the 2009 season, Lalit Modi, Chairman of the hugely successful tournament disclosed.
NEW DELHI: IPL franchises will be able to trade players early next year ahead of the 2009 season, Lalit Modi, Chairman of the hugely successful tournament disclosed on Sunday.
"There will be a transfer window open early next year just ahead of the 2009 season to enable franchises trade players and bring in the ones they require," he said in an interview.
Stating that he had been "overwhelmed" by the success of the Twenty20 competition, Modi also disclosed that certain innovations would be introduced in the tournament.
"One of the innovations to be introduced next year would be orange neon ball. This would, however, depend on how successful the trials of the same are," he said.
"This year we already introduced the Orange and Purple Cap innovations and the Kingfisher Team Fair Play award and will look at continuing with this tradition of innovation in the subsequent leagues," he added.
Modi said the second season of IPL was not possible before the 2011 ODI World Cup, to be co-hosted by the Asian cricketing nations.
"The second season as of now is a very distant possibility and will not take place definitely until after the 2011 World Cup given the FTP commitments of the Test playing nations and India.
"By then, I firmly believe, IPL would have already established itself as a major event and carved a niche for itself on the international cricketing calendar."
The inaugural edition of IPL, contested by eight teams non-stop for 44 days and telecast live by a private television channel during the prime time, gripped the cricket lovers, reportedly exceeding the popularity of TV serials and Bollywood films.
"Not to mention the TRPs that we have garnered in India which are quite frankly staggering to say the least. The success of the league is further exemplified in the Set Max's revenue market share of the top nine Hindi entertainment channels," Modi said.
"And all this because we have had some of the best cricketers from around the world... frankly I could not have envisaged a more successful inaugural season than this year," he added.
"Imagine the likes of Swapnil Asnodkar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Niraj Patel, Abhishek Nayyar (state-level players) and Yusuf Pathan getting mobbed by fans for their performances in the league."
On the revenue did BCCI generate though the IPL, Modi, also the Cricket Board President, said he had not information on that.
"I don't know the exact nature of revenue the IPL has generated for the BCCI as of now... However, we have at all junctures through out the IPL process attempted to be as transparent as possible in terms of the financials and so have communicated these publicly at all time and so you could also do some back of the cuff calculations to derive a number," he said.
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