The winner of the first ever IPL, Rajasthan Royals, has appointed a new CEO, Sean Morris. His role would be to look after the branding of the team outside of India, after it has been found that there is a lot of scope to spread the wings for an IPL franchise outside the shores of the country. Morris comes in with an 18 months of experience of having being the head of the Players Professional Association, and had been a player of Hampshire, having played for four years for the county.
Manoj Badale, who is the chairman and a co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals, also welcomed the presence of Morris in the side, as did Shane Warne, the captain of the side. Coincidentally, Warne had also been the captain of the Hampshire team, in a period that did not coincide with Morris’ stint with the side. Warne did say that he was delighted to have Morris as the CEO, given that he was a very well respected man all over the cricketing world.
And within a couple of days of taking over the role of the CEO, Morris has sounded out that his franchise may not be interested in picking up the English cricketers for the third edition of the IPL. He also went on to add that it was not only his own franchise, but also the remaining seven that may not go for English cricketers, given that they will not be available for the entire duration of the tournament. England play Bangladesh in an away series that eats up into the first couple of weeks of the tournament. Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff are already a part of the tournament, after being bought for $1.55 million by Bangalore and Chennai respectively.
Talking about Flintoff, Morris also added that such players who have only just retired from the game will be in great demand by the franchises, as they will be able to give it their all to the franchises. This, according to him, is because the IPL still does not have a natural window allocated to it by the IPL, and that does mean that getting an international player available for them through the entire duration of the tournament is usually difficult. Instead, players like Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Flintoff and now, even Andrew Symonds would prove to be huge assets to the side.
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