A few days after the successful IPL 2018 auctions, the New Zealand Cricket Association has came out criticising the auction process, calling it to be an undignified, cruel and unnecessary employment practice.
This is the first time cricket administrators from a country have openly hit out at the auction. "I think the whole system is archaic and deeply humiliating for the players, who are paraded like cattle for all the world to see," Heath Mills, chief executive of the New Zealand Cricket Players Association was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald.
Mills stated that there was a need to change the system in order for it facilitate greater engagement with players.
"There's a lot of good things about the Indian Premier League and it's been great for cricket but I'd like to see it mirror the rest of professional sport in the way they engage athletes," Mills said.
56 overseas players were bought in the auction including seven players from New Zealand out of the 24 names that made it to the final auction list - Brendon McCullum (CSK), Kane Williamson (SRH), Trent Boult (DD), Colin de Grandhomme (RCB), Colin Munro (DD), Tim Southee (RCB) and Mitchell Santner (CSK).
"Some players do exceptionally well out of if but the vast majority would like to see the system changed. They would like to negotiate with coaches and owners behind closed doors."
"The players enter the auction not knowing where they are going, who their team-mates are going be, who's managing them, who the owners are -- no other sports league in the world engages players on that basis," he added.
"Apart from the public disappointment of players being are passed in, those who are picked up are treated badly by modern standards," Mills said.
The cash-rich tournament has always been controversy attracted right from the first edition itself in 2008. Former greats of the game have always criticised the tournament due to the money involved in it, which many feels have corrupted the players and the system as a whole.
This just adds to the already long list of controversies that have been associated with over the years.
