The Indian Premier League may be months away but it is still making headlines every day. The reason is the open trading window. There is constant talk about big players changing teams. Fans are discussing if big stars will join new franchises or if old heroes will go back to their former teams, like Hardik Pandya to Mumbai Indians and Rishabh Pant to Delhi Capitals. This speculation has kept everyone talking.
Amid this entire buzz, batting great Sunil Gavaskar has raised a serious concern about how trades work in the IPL. He feels that IPL trades are not transparent. According to him, it is impossible for anyone to know if a team has followed or broken the salary cap rules because the financial details of a trade are kept secret.
Sunil Gavaskar explained this in his column for a leading newspaper. He wrote that while the Test series between India and Sri Lanka is about to start, the media is already speculating about players switching franchises, even though there is still time before the trading window closes.
He pointed out the difference between a normal transfer and a trade. When a player is transferred, it is public information. But when a trade happens between two teams, the actual amount of money involved is known only to the two teams, the player himself, and the BCCI.
Because of this, other teams have no way of knowing if the team involved in the trade stayed within its fixed salary cap or crossed it. Therefore, Sunil Gavaskar believes it is very important that these numbers are made public to maintain full transparency.
To understand why this matters, we can look at the IPL’s trade history. Trades have involved all kinds of players – from big Indian international stars to overseas players and young uncapped talents.
A recent example happened in June this year. Rishabh Pant returned to Delhi Capitals from Lucknow Super Giants, and in exchange, Kuldeep Yadav moved to LSG. Pant had been bought by LSG for a record Rs 27 crore in the 2025 mega auction but he was traded back to Delhi for a revised fee of Rs 15 crore. Kuldeep moved to LSG at his existing fee of Rs 13.50 crore.
Sunil Gavaskar clarified that he is not questioning whether trades are legal or not. His only concern is to keep the faith of fans and teams in the system. He concluded by saying that the IPL is the greatest T20 league in the world and it is very important to maintain full transparency so that people who are jealous of its success cannot point fingers at it.
Do you agree with Sunil Gavaskar?
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