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Khanna, the former manager of the Rajasthan Royals, gives much of the credit to the IPL for shaping his sports management career.
New Delhi: The Abu Dhabi T10 League is in its sixth season as the excitement it brings is gaining traction among cricket fans. League Chief Operating Officer Rajeev Khanna spoke at length about the league’s potential, players and how the 10-plus format fits into the Olympics.
“It has huge potential. I say potential in many ways. From a cricket point of view, I can say we have around 1600 international players registered around the world. We have to pick 250 out of them, from a commercial point of view. – Yes, the companies are very, very keen to know about it. We have some great franchise owners and big corporations are interested. We expect a lot of corporate and sports powerhouses to be part of the game in the near future part of that,” Khanna told cricket nation.
“My vision is to make it more appealing to the fans. What I’m seeing right now is that the product has huge potential. This potential, that’s what I wanted to achieve in the first few years and how we can make the league global,” he said on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi T10 League at the Zayed Cricket Stadium.
“That’s the whole idea of how we can get more of the crowd involved and make it the perfect mix of competitive cricket and entertainment and give the crowd an experience of a lifetime. There’s a lot of potential in this game, We are now focused on how to make it global and have plans for global expansion.
“We are fortunate to have for the first time a full ICC membership committee – the Sri Lanka Cricket Board – that has approved this format and we have recently launched the Sri Lanka T10 league. We plan to host this league in Sri Lanka in June. The final stage of other boards closing, you will see various T10 leagues in various countries. We plan to have at least 5 such leagues globally in the next 12 months,” he further added.
“Because of BCCI’s contract policy, we only have retired or recently retired players. So we are targeting players who can join. We have Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and S Sreesanth and we are aiming for more. Players love this format because it’s fast, exciting, and entertaining. So, we anticipate adding more titles.”
“I think this product is more suitable for competitions such as the Olympics. In the Olympics, there is no sport other than golf for more than 90 minutes. Golf is a different sport anyway. So this format is most suitable for the Olympics. The reason is that it Soon, 3-4 matches can be played in the same stadium in a day. There is definitely room for T10 in the Olympics as many countries are participating,” Khanna said of cricket being considered an Olympic sport one day .
Highlighting the challenges he faced trying to hold an event of this magnitude in two weeks, Khanna said: “What you see on camera isn’t just the crickets you see. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. There are a lot of unsung heroes, They actually helped deliver the product and make it look what it is. So thank you to my team for working tirelessly to put on an extremely successful event for the fans.”
Talking about making sports management a career, he said: “There is no better career than sports. It teaches you everything. Patience, handling stress, timelines, teamwork, leadership… in general, you will live Go up your own passion. I would encourage people to take this professionally as it has a lot of room to grow in the future in the UAE, India or wherever. The sport is growing and there is definitely a shortage of talent who can meet the demand and supply. We needed to cover that. It was challenging, but when you see the end product, it’s very satisfying.”
Talking about his relationship with the IPL, the former Rajasthan Royals manager gives most of the credit to the IPL for shaping his sports management career.
“Whatever I am today is because of the IPL. The challenges and experiences we have gained in the IPL are unique. Now all the other upcoming leagues are based on the IPL. Therefore, the IPL cannot be compared with any other league. With IPL has had a wonderful journey of 14 years together,” he concluded.
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