Will IPL auctions be a thing of the past?

The auction

The IPL auction sees the team owners bidding through several rounds for players to constitute a team which will compete in the 57-day tournament. The recently concluded IPL 2018 auction saw a total of 578 players going under the hammer, of which 360 were Indians.

Among international players, the highest number of players were from Australia (55) followed by South Africa (42), New Zealand (24), England (24), West Indies (34) Sri Lanka (18), Afghanistan (10), Bangladesh (6), Zimbabwe (4), Ireland (1).

The auction, which is just as popular as the IPL, has been an integral part of IPL since its genesis in 2008 but if some news reports are anything to go by, the criticism of the IPL auction by the rest of the cricketing fraternity has not gone unheard.

The surrounding criticism

Recently, New Zealand Cricket Players Association's chief executive Heath Mills criticised the auction system saying that it was archaic and deeply humiliating to the players. Mills was endorsing a tweet from Peter Clinton, a former chief executive of Wellington Cricket, who described the auctions as undignified and cruel employment practice.

Ridiculing the auction further Clinton had said that it belonged in the medieval ages. After this incident, New Zealand has become the first country where the administrators have raised voice disapproving the auction process.

The auction may have to give way to the drafting system.

The way out

Amid the growing concerns that the players have no control over their destiny and are being auctioned like commodities available to the highest bidder, IPL's COO Hemang Amin has hinted towards introducing a draft system which is already in use across various other sports like NFL and NBA.

Amin also said that the IPL governing council is pondering over how to cut down on big auction process and let the players continue with the teams they want. He also added that in future, it might be possible to have the draft system in place for new players which will work as a feeder system to teams.

Author's take

In the span of 10 years, many players have already played for more than 4-5 teams. This frequent change hampers the chances of a player to settle down and perform up to his potential. Thus it becomes very important for a player to have a say in deciding the team for which he wants to play. The draft system, if implemented will be a welcome change from the decade-old auction process.