Encouraged by the success of last year's inaugural edition of Orissa Premier League (OPL), the governing council of the Twenty20 tournament is gearing up to conduct the second edition of the league in April next year.
Published: Oct 17, 2011, 12:57 PM (IST)
Edited: Oct 17, 2011, 12:57 PM (IST)
The Orissa Premier League will have 12 teams participating in it, two more than the introductory edition © AFP
Cuttack: Oct 17, 2011
Encouraged by the success of last year’s inaugural edition of Orissa Premier League (OPL), the governing council of the Twenty20 tournament is gearing up to conduct the second edition of the league in April next year.
In a governing council meeting here on Sunday it was decided to hold the OPL-II from April 1 to April 22, 2012 with 12 teams participating in it, two more than the introductory edition.
“Besides the ten teams which featured last year, two more franchisees would be allowed to play this time on the basis of their bidding prices,” said OCA secretary Asirbad Behera adding the ten odd teams would renew their franchise with last year’s bid price.
The council also decided that both the inaugural and final matches of the OPL-II would be played at Barabati stadium here while the league matches would be played at six different venues across the state.
Apart from the previous five venues, Balasore or Rourkela could get an opportunity to host the T20 games during the secod edition, sources revealed.
Among other major decisions, the council decided to increase the prize money for the winners. While the champions would pocket a cash prize of Rs five lakhs, the runners up would be richer by Rs three lakhs.
The third placed team would receive prize money of Rs one lakh while the fourth would get Rs 50,000.
The council has also decided that this time each team would be allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 10 lakhs for purchasing both graded and catchment area players.
A purse limit of only Rs 8 lakhs for players’ auction had caused a lot of problems for some of the franchisees last year.
Franchisees shall have at least four players from their catchment areas to make up its team of 16 and at least two of them must be fielded in playing 11.(PTI)
