While Mumbai Indians prepare to defend their title in the Indian Premier League (IPL) beginning on April 7, cricket enthusiasts in the city can get into the T20 groove with the inaugural T20 Mumbai League (TML), to be played at the Wankhede Stadium from March 11-21.
A T20 league has been on the Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA) drawing boards for nearly six years now. In an endeavour to professionalise the league and bring in revenue to MCA’s coffers, the association has sold the management rights to Probability Sports, a joint venture between IIFL and Wizcraft.
The league will have six teams, each representing a geographical area in the city, and will see participation by some of the biggest names in Mumbai cricket, including India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, veteran Dhawal Kulkarni and rising star Shreyas Iyer.
A player auction on the lines of IPL auction, held over the weekend, saw each team being given a purse of ₹35 lakh. In all, franchise owners spent ₹2.03 crore to sign on 119 city players.
This means most of the top local talent will be on display at the Wankhede, where two matches will be played every day at 3 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. As maidan heroes take on first-class regulars, it remains to be seen if fans turn up in big numbers, given that the tournament clashes with year-end school exams.
Few big guns
Seemingly ill-timed, the league will see little of big-ticket players including Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur and Prithvi Shaw, who commanded high rates at the player auction.
While Sharma will be leading India’s T20 outfit in the tri-series in Sri Lanka, Thakur will be the preferred new-ball bowler. Shaw, meanwhile, will seek to enhance his reputation with a sterling show in Nagpur for Rest of India against Ranji champions Vidarbha in the Irani Cup, to be played March 14 to March 18.
To add to MCA’s misery, a group of its members has been vehemently opposing the league. It is alleged that the present managing committee is not authorised to start a new business venture, and the group may soon seek legal intervention.
In an effort to lend credibility, organisers have roped in two of the biggest names in Mumbai, and Indian, cricket: Sachin Tendulkar will be the brand ambassador and Sunil Gavaskar, the League Commissioner. Add to that the presence of the likes of Sandeep Patil, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Vinod Kambli and Amol Muzumdar in the change rooms, and an ardent Mumbai cricket fan will have plenty to look forward to in the 11-day tournament.
