Reports: IPL eyes expansion from 8 to 10 teams once again

What's the story?

The stakeholders and organizers of IPL met in London earlier this week to discuss the introduction of new franchises among other issues. IPL had undergone an expansion way back in 2011, but the board reduced the number of teams to 8 due to some unforeseen circumstances.

In case you didn't know...

Back in 2010, the BCCI had invited the potential stakeholders to place their tenders for the new IPL teams. Pune Warriors India and Kochi Tuskers Kerala emerged as the two new franchises bought by the Sahara Group and Kochi Cricket Pvt. Ltd., respectively. While the BCCI expelled Kochi in the year 2012 due to financial issues, the BCCI ended Pune Warriors India’s run as an IPL franchise on 26th October 2013.

The IPL Governing Council introduced two new teams in Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions in the year 2016 to replace the suspended Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings. Once Rajasthan and Chennai’s suspension got over, they returned to the league as Pune and Gujarat left.

The heart of the matter

As per PTI, a team official who attended the aforementioned meeting said:

“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.”

Another IPL official had also confirmed the proceedings, without giving many details. The source only said that there is no concrete plan at the moment because more teams will result in a tighter schedule.

What's next?

Given that IPL has become the grandest T20 league of the world, there will be no shortage of potential team owners. It will be intriguing to see which teams join the fray soon.

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