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Loading ...Gideon Haigh made the point on a sports TV show down here after the first week of IPL action that do you think these multi-millionares that are buying these players and teams would seriously be content on letting their teams sit idle for 46 weeks of the year?
I think a fight between national boards and IPL team owners, over the availability of players, is inevitable.
The worth of Pietersen
By Will 2 months ago Leave a comment on this post
Kevin Pietersen, one of cricket’s most marketable assets, is on the verge of signing for an unnamed Indian Premier League franchise for a record-breaking $4m. That is quite some u-turn.
Before (February 29, 2008):
“There’s no way in this world I’d turn my back on England,” he told BBC Radio Five Live. “I know there is interest and, yes, there have been offers, etc etc, but it’s not something I’m particularly interested in. Money’s not really too important, it’s not as if I need money right now. I’m really enjoying doing what I’m doing.”
After (April 5, 2008):
“It’s silly to think that you’re losing up to a million [dollars] over six weeks.”
The comparison is a little unfair: Pietersen did justify his stance later by saying “You want your best players playing both for their country and for the IPL. You don’t want them choosing between the two”, and that’s probably the way it should go. If Pietersen or Andrew Flintoff or any other England player wants to make some quick money, they of course should be allowed.
The big concern for cricketers is whether the IPL goldrush goose will, in their minds, deem Test cricket the ugly, cheap duckling. Worse, Test cricket could lose even more quality players if other leagues spawn, such as Allen Stanford’s, thus diluting the format’s very essence.
Tags: england, indian premier league, IPL, kevin-pietersen, money, test-cricket |
9 Responses to “The worth of Pietersen”
May 18th, 2008 at 2.25 am
May 18th, 2008 at 4.19 am
I don’t see what any new leagues could do that’s different. The Australian and English T20 is already very popular, and any teams you come up with would already be so strong that you wouldn’t really need any overseas players. The Stanford T20 is doing very well without them, as is the South African tournament. So the calls in Australia and England for new T20 tournaments to replace the existing ones is pretty strange, considering how popular and profitable they already are.
As to Pietersen- a lot of the big names in the IPL are doing pretty poorly, so $4m for him sounds a lot like a waste of money.
On another note, I see Ponting was worth every cent of that measly $400k he was bought for. 
May 18th, 2008 at 5.33 pm
Marcus, the problem with that is that the owner’s have explicitly bought the players for a 6week period so soon they’ll demand a window for the IPL.
A bigger problem would arise if a player got injured and missed IPL games. Would a team owner then sue the national board for compensation like football now?
May 18th, 2008 at 9.33 pm
Actually the owners need the players to be absent for some of the six weeks otherwise they will fall foul of the $5 million salary cap (not that I have any doubt that the limit will be lifted at some point). At the moment your spending is based pro rata so if you can’t do the full tournament then you only get a proportion - and that proportion, to a minumum of 25% of the bid price, is what is banked against the annual $5m cap. So… Pietersen may well technically be bought for $1.5m per year, but if he only plays for three weeks then he will cost $750,000. That said, I think that almost all the franchises are pretty much up to their salary cap limit anyway, which is why the second auction ended in most players only going for $100,000 (pro rata in the case of Mascarenhas and others). Of course, they could always drop a player they have already bought in order to fit Pietersen in, but that is bound to have legal complications for compensation (and should that then come under the salary cap?). I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect this will all become messy.
May 18th, 2008 at 9.57 pm
There was talk of the salary cap being lifted but I can’t find the story on Cricinfo. Maybe the IPL will somehow manage to self-destruct under its own greed.
May 19th, 2008 at 12.43 am
CurryCricketer’s right to predict an IPL-national board stoush. Have a look at
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4553387a1823.html
for a story about NZ cricket being offered more money to release MacCullum from the England tour for a short period to play in the IPL finals. Although the NZ chief exec is denying it, note the admission “there was some talk after his big hundred in the tournament opener but we said ‘no’”.
May 19th, 2008 at 6.44 am
I was waiting for this story to pop up.Eagerly ,at that.
Didn’t take much time to make the headlines.The franchise, I believe, is the bangalore franchise.
The news I’m getting is that Pietersen will sign up next year, for the royal challengers of bangalore in all probability.
Lalit modi has made it clear that the Rs.20 crore caps WILL go next year.Hence you’ll see much more money being shelled out.According to info I have , this was done under pressure from Vijay mallya(Bangalore franchise owner), Mukesh Ambani(Mumbai franchise owner) & Chennai team owners.
Dhoni’s getting $1.5m.I belive those prices will go up about 6 times at the minimum.He might get more considering he’s hugely marketable, his team’s done well,he’s a keeper/batsman and a captain who’s 1 of the top scorers of the IPL.
Your performances will determine the money you make next year.So hayden,gambhir,hussey(mike) will get the money they deserve.
As for pietersen,he’ll be in the “upper middle class” of the IPL, certainly not at the top.Flintoff might make it closer, but he plays a game and rests for an year.
Don’t worry, it won’t become messy.1 of the few things the BCCI is good at is precisely this –How to make money without appearing messy.
May 19th, 2008 at 10.54 am
lol … 6 fold increase! That’s getting probably even above the money paid to footballers. And all this for six weeks a year? Seriously.
June 5th, 2008 at 9.09 am
Footballers get about 100 times more.LOL.
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