Aakash Chopra Wants Five Overseas Players In Playing XI To Be Allowed In IPL 2022

Cricketer turned commentator Aakash Chopra wants IPL organisers to allow five overseas players in a playing XI from IPL 2022 onwards.

Since last 14 seasons each team can place only four foreign players in their main team as to allow more presence of the Indian players and also give opportunity to the young players to shoecase their talent.

Allow five overseas players in a playing XI in the IPL: Aakash Chopra

Chopra believes that it is upto the team management whether to field four of five players but BCCI should allow the allocation of five overseas players from next season.

“Allow five overseas players in a playing XI in the IPL. Right now we have four and I think it dilutes the competition a bit. Five overseas players should be allowed to feature in a playing XI. Of course, franchises can field eleven Indians if they want, but I feel at least there should be the option of allowing five overseas cricketers to feature in the playing XI. Whether or not they play is a different matter altogether,” Chopra said on his Youtube channel.

From where will the two new teams pick good Indian players?: Aakash Chopra

With two new teams coming in, IPL 2022 will see a mega auction with majority of players will go under the hammer.

Chopra is also sceptical that franchises won’t be able to get quality Indian players as most of the franchises will retain their star Indian players and the two new teams will be at the disadvantage in auction.

“If a particular franchise has not been able to pick too many good Indian players, this will come in handy. For example, if each team is allowed to retain three players ahead of the auction and all of them retain three Indian players each, that makes it a total of 24 Indian cricketers who will not be available for the auction. If so, from where will the two new teams pick good Indian players?” Chopra said.

“Obviously, nobody can stop the franchises from retaining players. So the new franchises may have money, but they might not be able to put together good teams due to a lack of options. In such a case, these franchises can utilize more overseas players and build their Indian core gradually,” he added.

On Monday, BCCI announced the two successful bidders to acquire a team in IPL 2022- RPSG Ventures Ltd. – Lucknow (for INR 7,090 crores) and Irelia Company Pte Ltd (CVC Capital Partners) – Ahmedabad (for INR 5,625 crores).

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