IPL 2020 can see 'special umpire' for monitoring no-balls

Mumbai: As the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 got affected by poor on-field umpiring calls regarding front-foot no-balls, IPL's governing council can very well introduce an extra umpire to handle no-balls, a BCCI source confirmed on Tuesday.

"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 larger duration for the tournament as the governing council is looking to play more matches in the evening.

Traditionally, the IPL is known to last for 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.

The source also said that the board is trying to make IPL teams compete against the overseas teams in order to make use of the non-IPL period.

"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 concluded.