Mumbai, Sep 5 (IANS): The Indian cricket board Sunday unveiled a new format for the next season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), with the 10 teams split into two groups and the cap on team spending increased to $9 million.
The fourth season of the IPL will have 10 teams after the addition of two new teams. There will be 74 matches in total, compared to 60 earlier this year.
The format needed to be changed after the inclusion of two new franchises -- Pune Warriors and Kochi.
There will be 70 league matches and four play off matches with each team having the same number of matches (14 in total - 7 home and 7 away) as in the previous IPL editions, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said in a statement after the meeting of the IPL Governing Council.
There will be one league table with teams divided into two groups of five teams each.
Each team would play the other four teams in its group twice (home and away), four of the five teams in the other group once (home or away) and one of the five teams in the other group twice (home and away).
The groups will be decided by a random draw, and similarly, which team will play the other from the other group twice or once will also be decided by a random draw.
This ensures all franchises will have the same number of matches at home as in the previous editions.
Teams are allowed to retain four players in their squads from the last event -- a maximum of three Indians and two foreigners.
The cap for each team to spend on the players at the auction was raised to $9 million from the $7 million.
The number of overseas players in the squad will be 10 with no more that four in the team.
Uncapped Indian players will now be getting Rs.1 million per annum if the player has not played or first played Ranji Trophy (first class or List A) in the 2009-10 or 2010-11 seasons.
It will be Rs.2 million per annum if the player has played Ranji Trophy (First class or List A) in the 2006-07, 2007-08 or 2008-09 seasons and Rs.3 million if the player first played Ranji Trophy (First class or List A) in the 2005-06 or earlier seasons.
As for the retention of players, up to four players per franchise may be signed for retention of which only up to three shall be Indian players and the squad size has been restricted to 30.
The board said it will manage all player contracts directly.
"All player contracts will now be managed by BCCI and signed by BCCI along with the franchise and the player. A new player registration and contract management process will be detailed soon. No player contracts can be signed until then. Player regulation for 2011 season will be circulated soon to all franchisees which will detail the player contract, registration and signing process," BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement.
Also, the catchment areas have been revised and this will be now aligned according to the association instead of a states. Pune can pick its team from the Maharashtra and Vidarbha Cricket Associations while Kochi has been alloted the Kerala and Madhya Pradesh associations.