The upcoming mega Indian Premier League (IPL) auction has been scheduled in the middle of the opening Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) between India and Australia, which has surprised some of the Australian cricketers, including their former T20I captain Aaron Finch.
The BGT opener in Perth begins on November 22 and the IPL Auction in Jeddah is scheduled for November 24 and 25, which will be the third and fourth days of the Test match. However, to ensure that the two events don’t run simultaneously, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has kept the start-time on both days of the auction as 3 pm IST. By then, the day’s play in Perth would have ended.
“I just think it’s a bit unusual that they’ve gone up against a Test match at the same time. Understanding the time zones are different, so it’ll most likely happen after a day’s play of Test cricket,” said Finch on ESPN’s ‘Around the Wicket’ show on Wednesday.
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“But I would have thought (scheduling the IPL auction) maybe between Test matches would have been ideal, but there’s obviously a reason for it. The BCCI, when they want things to happen, they generally get their way.”
The clash will force Australia’s assistant coach Daniel Vettori to leave the team midway through the Perth Test to fly to Jeddah and be with his franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, where he is the head coach, for the two-day auction.
Similarly Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer, who are contracted by Channel Seven as experts for the BGT, will catch the flight to Jeddah and take their seats as the head coach of Punjab Kings and Lucknow Super Giants, respectively.
Former Australia batsman Callum Ferguson feels the two events clashing at the start of big-ticket Australian summer against India will disappoint Cricket Australia (CA).
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“They have been doing that for a long period of time, but certainly we know where the IPL stands in the landscape. It’s such a big draw card for eyeballs and cricket lovers around the world. But I think CA would be a bit disappointed that they’ve put it on at the start of the summer, the first Test match for Australia at home against their biggest draw card (India) over the four-year fixture,” said Ferguson.
Former Australia captain and Punjab Kings’ new head coach Ponting called it a “worst case scenario” as he hoped it would fall between two BGT Tests, but that didn’t happen.
“It’s the worst possible case scenario for me and JL (Langer). We, for the last couple of months, felt that it was probably going to be in the gap between the Test matches. It takes all the pressure off the players from both teams. There are a lot of players in both teams in the auction,” Ponting told ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’.
“I don’t know why they’ve chosen the dates they have…The auction actually starts on air almost immediately after the end of play. So it might have something to do with the broadcast.”