IPL 2018: Mumbai Indians object to change in match timings

As the Indian Premier League successfully completed 10 years of its existence, the Mumbai Indians managed to become the most successful team. They won three titles over the course of time and went past Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings, who won two titles each. They’ve done a decent job thus far in the IPL auction as well, managing to buy some wonderful talents at a very moderate price, the best example of it being Evin Lewis.

The tournament is now entering its second decade and it all began at the Auction table in Bengaluru. There have been some intense bidding battles for a few players and a lot of purchases managed to raise the fans’ eyebrows. Mumbai Indians’ most expensive buy in the auction was Krunal Pandya, who came into the side by virtue of the RTM card.

There’s something else which is making troubling Akash Ambani, the co-owner of the Mumbai Indians. He and his team members are against the newly proposed match timings. Star India, the new broadcasters of the biggest cricketing league in the world, have requested some changes in the timings, which didn’t work well with most franchises.

That’ll impact the attendance and revenue: Akash Ambani

The Star India officials are wanting the evening games to be advanced to 7 pm, while having the first games of doubleheaders to start at 5:30 pm. Earlier, the afternoon games started at 4 pm while the evening games started at 8 pm. The IPL Governing Council proposed the same to the franchises and didn’t get enough support to materialize the plan.

Akash Ambani reckons these timings might have a drastic impact on the attendance and revenue. Considering most of the people in Mumbai work till 7 pm on an average, he believes no one will be able to make it to the stadium on time and they might prefer avoiding it.