IPL: Sparking the emergence of newer hubs
KOLKATA: When the IPL started in 2008, eight franchises were allowed to pick a local marquee player as captain, a mandate that Rajasthan Royals (led by Shane Warne) and Chennai Super Kings (led by MS Dhoni) couldn’t fulfill because they didn’t have one matching the profile. Another, more elaborate requirement aimed to give every franchise local flavour was to pick four under-21 players and four players from the franchise’s catchment area.
That meant Mumbai Indians could recruit players from Mumbai, Maharashtra and Vidarbha; Chennai Super Kings from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Railways, Kolkata Knight Riders from Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Tripura and Sikkim; Deccan Chargers from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha; Royal Challengers Bangalore from Karnataka, Goa and Services; Delhi Daredevils from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh; Kings XI Punjab from Haryana, Punjab, HP and Jammu & Kashmir and Rajasthan Royals from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baroda and Saurashtra.
The idea of an equitable distribution of domestic players, noble as it was, wasn’t a sustainable model because some regions weren’t producing enough quality players.
As a result, small but significant changes started seeping in. Ahead of the 2011 mega auction, franchises were allowed to retain up to four players. ‘Right to Match’ cards were introduced in auctions, allowing franchises to buy back players they had to let go.
The regional representation of players, as a result, too started getting skewed from top down: Gautam Gambhir went from Delhi Daredevils to Knight Riders, Rohit Sharma returned to Mumbai Indians from Deccan Chargers and Yuvraj Singh moved out of Kings XI to Pune Warriors.
As franchises started their own academies and developed an extensive network of scouts who tried to spot and sign potential talent as early as possible, the idea of the catchment area became even more vague. An analysis of the regional distribution of IPL players though profrom
duces some interesting observations.
The nerve centres
Including the 138 Indians bought, retained and signed after the auction by 10 franchises (minus the withdrawn players), 160 are playing this season. Nearly half (74) of them are from the cricket associations of Karnataka
(16), Delhi (16), Punjab (15), Tamil Nadu (14) and Mumbai (13). Add Rajasthan (8), Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Saurashtra (5 each), Gujarat and Baroda (4 each) to this list and a whopping 105—just over 65% of all Indian players—are from just 12 out of the 38 cricket associations currently in India.
Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the captains too come from this area— two each from Maharashtra (Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer), Karnataka (KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal) and Gujarat (Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja) while Rishabh Pant is from Delhi. Sanju Samson is the only IPL captain to come from a state (Kerala) that isn’t a domestic heavyweight.
Till 2022, Jharkhand too featured on this list because of MS Dhoni but the numbers otherwise are dismal for the eastern and northeastern parts of India. Between Bengal (6), Jharkhand (4), Bihar (2) and Orissa (1), this area provides just 13 cricketers— Ishan Kishan easily being the most known face among them— with only Assam’s Riyan Parag from the northeast.
Hinterland factor
Take out Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Varun Chakaravarthy, T Natarajan, Navdeep Saini, and Mohammad Siraj from the list of specialist bowlers and a majority of the rest come from beyond the top tier cities. Bhuvneshwar Kumar to Kartik Tyagi, Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi and Ankit Rajpoot, Uttar Pradesh remains the largest unorganised sector when it comes to producing quality bowlers, with some like Mohammad Shami even ending up playing for other states.
But pacers like Khaleel Ahmed and Kamlesh Nagarkoti (Rajasthan), Avesh Khan and Kuldeep Sen (Madhya Pradesh) and Jammu & Kashmir’s Umran Malik and Rasikh Salam are proof of the steady emergence of international level talent from states that aren’t exactly powerhouses. The same applies for some premier spinners such as Yuzvendra Chahal (Haryana) and Rahul Chahar (Rajasthan).
When it comes to batters though, few big names have emerged from beyond the traditional centres. In Robin Uthappa, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant, Nitish Rana, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav; Mumbai, Delhi and Karnataka have accounted for the main batting slots of almost every IPL team.
State T20 leagues
Domestic cricket pedigree and grassroots level infrastructure explain the overwhelming prevalence of cricketers from Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab and TN in the IPL. Between them, TN and Karnataka have won the last four Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournaments. Scouts are always on the prowl in the most obscure cricketing outposts but the national T20 meet is where bulk of the uncapped talent is tapped. Another significant factor is the state level T20 leagues which are providing finished products for the IPL. Till match-fixing scandals rocked the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) in 2019, it was in the news for honing talent like Prasidh Krishna, Padikkal and KC Cariappa. The Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) is doing what the Buchi Babu tournament used to: help unearth talent, especially during Covid, apart from providing a launch pad for IPL stars like Natarajan, M Ashwin and Shahrukh Khan. And considering the ever-changing requirements of the franchises, the contribution of such T20 leagues can only increase.