The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 season is reaching the halfway mark of the league stage. Once all the teams in this year’s edition play seven matches each, there is an exciting prospect of capped, talented players being traded between franchises through the ‘transfer window’.
Akin to transfer windows in football, IPL also brought in the concept to enable utilising services of under-used players in their original teams. While in the 2019 edition IPL allowed franchises to exchange uncapped players, in 2020 both capped and uncapped players from India and abroad will be allowed to change teams midway during the season. The only condition is that the players who are traded should not have played more than two games for their original teams by the halfway mark of the season. While capped players refers to those who have played at least one IPL game in the current season, uncapped players are those who haven’t played a single game.
The idea is to give the players, who have not been used enough by their original teams, an opportunity to play for another team where there might be a genuine need for their skills. For example, talented players like N Jagadeesan and Imran Tahir (both from Chennai Super Kings) have not been used by the team at all in the 2020 season. Transfer window will provide the other teams to add these players to their teams and use them based on their skills.
Another major reason for having a transfer window mid-season is the possibility of teams to find good replacements for their players who might have suffered unexpected injuries during the first half of the season. This becomes even more relevant this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the bio-bubble and quarantine conditions that are placed on the players before they are allowed to join their teams. This makes bringing in new replacements for injured players from other countries extremely difficult for the teams.
The window will open from Tuesday and last for five days. Players who have not played over two matches for their home teams can be traded in the transfer period with the consent of the said players. The franchises will have to notify IPL as to which players have been transferred to which teams.
The following is a selective list of players as on October 10 who will be up for grabs:
Kings XI Punjab — Chris Gayle, Mandeep Singh, M Ashwin
Mumbai Indians — Nathan Coulter-Nile, Aditya Tare, Mohsin Khan
Chennai Super Kings — Imran Tahir, N Jagadeesan, Mitchell Santner
Royal Challengers Bangalore — Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Dale Steyn, Umesh Yadav
Rajasthan Royals — Manan Vohra, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Varun Aaron, Andrew Tye
Delhi Capitals — Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma
SunRisers Hyderabad — Wriddhiman Saha, Vijay Shankar
Kolkata Knight Riders — Sandeep Warrier, Tom Banton, Nikhil Naik