Ness Wadia writes to Ganguly: Proposes national anthem prior to start of every match in IPL

Kings XI Punjab co-owner Ness Wadia has written to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly and proposed that the Indian national anthem should be played before the start of every Indian Premier League (IPL) game, commencing with the 2020 edition.

"I have been proposing it for a while. I have spoken to the CEO and other officials about it. And now again, I approached BCCI to think about it. This time I have written to president Sourav Ganguly," Wadia told ANI.

The national anthem is played in the Indian Super League (football) and the Pro-Kabaddi League.

This week, IPL's governing council agreed to introduce an extra umpire to handle no-balls.

"We are looking to have a special umpire in place for monitoring no balls so that they can be detected early and not just after the replays and awkward situations can be avoided," a BCCI source told ANI.

The source also confirmed that the idea of 'Power Player' will not be implemented in the next edition of the tournament. Power Player would have allowed each team to make one substitute per game.

"Power Player rule cannot be implemented as time is too short for its implementation and planning and we don't want to take chances," the source said.

Next year's IPL could also see a longer tournament. Traditionally, the IPL lasts 45 days. During the weekends, two matches are played in a single day with one game starting at 4 pm with the other starting at 8 pm.

"We are looking to play more matches in the evenings and reduce the number of games played during the day. This may even lead to the IPL being played over a larger duration than usual," the source said.

"We are looking to explore options so that the IPL teams can play against teams outside of IPL so that they are utilised even during the non-IPL period. We will try and take some more important decisions in the coming time for the betterment of the game and the tournament," the source added.