No downtime for Patidar, RCB mates as domestic T20 season begins

There is hardly any downtime for the top bracket of Indian cricketers as in less than a week of the IPL 2026 concluding, they are back in business. While members of the Test team, including skipper Shubman Gill have converged in Mullanpur for the one-off contest against Afghanistan from Saturday, the winning captain of Royal Challengers Bengaluru – Rajat Patidar – wasted no time to lead his team in the Madhya Pradesh League (MPL) T20 Scindia Cup 2026.

The start to his state’s own league was not exactly an ideal one for Patidar, captain of Gwalior Cheetahs, as they suffered a whopping 92-run defeat to Ujjain Falcons in the MPL opener in Indore on Wednesday. Patidar, whose leadership in RCB and ultra-aggressive approach in batting played it’s part in back-to-back titles for his team, was dismissed cheaply for 11.

The Cheetahs, who made a semi-final exit in MPL last season, will look to hit the winning ways quickly. Shaking off the fatigue of crisscrossing the country to play the marathon IPL over last two months, Patidar said on the eve of the game: ‘’ It’s always a special feeling to come back and play in Madhya Pradesh. The last couple of months have been memorable, but every new tournament brings fresh challenges and fresh motivation. The MPL has become an important platform for cricket in the state and I’m excited to once again represent the Gwalior Cheetahs.’’

Incidentally, Patidar is not the only player from the IPL title-winning team to figure in MPL as Venkatesh Iyer – yet another marquee name in Madhya Pradesh – is captaining the Indore Pink Panthers. The MPL is another one in the assembly line after the BCCI sanction for state bodies to conduct their own T20 leagues – with the directive that all of them have to start at the conclusion of IPL and can run over June-July.

A conservative estimate says that there are at least 15 of them now in which the time-tested ones are the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) and the Maharajas Cup in Bengaluru – while the other high profile ones are Mumbai T20 League, Delhi Premier League, Bengal Pro T20 League alongwith the ones in UP, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Vidarbha.

The Maharajas Cup in Karnataka will see Devdutt Padikkal, who opened the RCB innings in the later part of IPL campaign with Virat Kohli, where the stylish southpaw is turning out for Hubli Tigers. Jitesh Sharma, the wicketkeeper-batter of RCB, meanwhile headed straight to Nagpur after playing the IPL final in Ahmedabad to join his team Neco Master Blaster in the Vidarbha T20 League which was one of the first to get off the blocks.

There is no doubt that the proliferation of such leagues has led to a huge crop of uncapped players making decent money (often to the tune of Rs 8-9 lakhs), while such leagues have been the hunting ground of the IPL scouts. However, multiple visits to the Eden Gardens last year for Bengal Pro T20 League showed rather poor turnouts – raising questions whether it’s a case of being one league too many and more a work in progress.

An embarrassing case for Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), hosts of Bengal Pro T20, was when Harbour Diamonds, the franchise led by former international and Bengal captain Manoj Tiwary, pulled out of the league after two seasons just ahead of the auction. This came right on the back of an announcement that the number of teams will go upto nine this season, forcing CAB to scale the league back into a eight-team affair like first two seasons.

There was another jarring incident which saw the partners of Rarh Tigers pulling out of their agreement – which resulted in their mentor Wriddhiman Saha stepping down of his role in pre-season. The BCCI have been keeping these incidents on their radar but have stayed away as it’s the prerogative of the states and respective franchises.

A senior BCCI official, however, said on conditions of anonymity: ‘’There should be some diligence as to who are the investors behind these teams. There should be some quality control as well….For example, a parallel women’s league in Bengal is a great idea, but do they have sufficient depth in the pool of players to make eight teams?’’ Surely, it’s a point to ponder!