IPL Governing Council chairman Rajeev Shukla confirmed that they were looking to alter the timing. (Source: BCCI)
WITH A number of matches this IPL season having extended beyond the midnight hour, the BCCI is contemplating advancing the start time to 7 pm for the playoffs and final. The tournament is scheduled to enter the business end in the fourth week of May with a playoff game between the 1st and 4th ranked teams and two eliminators to decide the other finalist before IPL XI comes to a close on the 27th with the grand final at the Wankhede Stadium. And the IPL Governing Council is keen to get the matches to start an hour earlier than 8 pm, which has been the traditional opening time in the IPL since its inception.
IPL Governing Council chairman Rajeev Shukla confirmed that they were looking to alter the timing and also recalled how there had been talks of doing so for all the matches during the build-up to this season.
“What happens is that the night games get over by midnight. We wanted to start the games early from the beginning, but some of the franchises didn’t agree to it. They especially had a problem with them on weekends which generally have a double-header scheduled. The playoff stage has a single game on the day and we can start by 7pm so that the people who come to the ground can enjoy the match and also reach home on time,” Shukla said.
The original request for the change in scheduled timing had come from broadcasters Star India, and the governing council had accepted the proposal in principle during a meeting in Bangalore. As per the proposed changes, the 8pm games were to be shifted to 7pm and the 4pm ones be postponed to 5:30 pm. The BCCI had then sought the views of the eight franchises and they admitted to not being comfortable with the change.
“There will be no problem on days with just a single match but there will be a big one when there are doubleheaders. They won’t get the complete three-hour quota and instead will have to share it with two matches. The overlap will result in one-and-a-half hours of each IPL match losing out on viewers,” a franchise official had told this paper.