We are now just a few months away from the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League, as excitement levels are definitely on the rise among fans all over the country.
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India’s biggest cricketing carnival will start from the first week of April, as the IPL will start a fresh chapter this season. The franchises took part in the IPL auction a couple of weeks back, as all eight teams hit the reset button and built new squads from scratch.
The tournament was supposed to start from April 5th, with Mumbai Indians hosting Chennai Super Kings.
But it looks like there will be a dramatic change this year, as Star Sports have proposed a change in match-timings on the double-header days.
Earlier at the IPL auction, the chairman, Rajeev Shukla, spoke about the broadcasters’ request for a change in match-timings.
“The Broadcasters requested for a change in timings and IPL governing council in principal has accepted it,” IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla said.
“IPL 11 to begin on 6th April 2018 with opening ceremony in Mumbai and first match on 7th April in Mumbai, the final on 27th May will also be in Mumbai,” said Rajeev Shukla, Commissioner of the IPL, confirming the dates of the event.
“Live broadcast of 8pm game will be shifted to 7pm, while 4pm will be played at 5:30pm,” he added.
Star Sports want to change the traditional 4 PM and 8 PM starts to 5:30 PM and 7 PM instead which was unanimously rejected by all eight franchises.
While this change in timings will help Star Sports increase their ratings and viewership, it will come as a huge loss to a majority of fans who will miss over one-and-a-half hours of the matches.
This is what a franchise official had to say,
“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.”
Clearly there are some issues that need to be resolved ahead of the IPL season!
