Rules of IPL

Rules

There are five ways that a franchise can acquire a player. In the annual auction, buying domestic players, signing uncapped players, through trading and buying replacements. In the trading window the player can only be traded with his consent. The franchise will have to pay the difference between the old contract price and the new contract price. If the new contract is worth more than the older one then the difference will be shared between the player and the franchise selling the player.

Some of the Team composition rules are:

• Minimum squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.
• No more than 8 foreign players in the squad and at most 4 in the playing XI.For the 2009 edition franchises are allowed 10 foreign players in the squad. The number allowed in the playing XI remains unchanged at 4.
• A minimum of 8 local players must be included in each squad.
• A minimum of 2 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each squad.

Some of the differences to international T20 cricket:

• Introduced also in the IPL, a difference to international cricket is a timeout. It gives the players an opportunity to strategise and take a drink during the strict 2:30 Minute time limit. Each team is awarded two timeout per innings totalling to four timeouts for the whole game but the teams only may take the timeout when instructed but is a must to take at the end of 9th and 16th overs.
• IPL is also known for having commercials during the game hence there being no time limit for innings by      teams being penalised runs. There may be a penalty if the umpire finds teams misusing this privilege at their own choice.

The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5m. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. The most expensive player in the IPL to date are Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen at US $1.55m each.

Official website

The IPL negotiated a contract with the Canadian company Live Current Media Inc. to run and operate its portals and the minimum guarantee has been negotiated at US $50 million over the next 10 years. The official website of the tournament is http://www.iplt20.com/.

Incorporating popular forms of social media into the third season of the IPL, the website now contains a more holistic presence across all online mediums. The website apart from featuring new additions to empower user interaction, has encouraged a wider range of websites around IPL like IPL Tracker  and IPL Mag amongst other more traditional reporting websites.