Indian Premier League Introduces Compulsory Time-outs During Matches

Cricket will take another step into the unknown on Saturday when compulsory time-outs are introduced into the Indian Premier League. Unlike their counterparts in American sports, however, these breaks – each lasting seven-and-a-half minutes – have little to do with tactics and everything to do with squeezing more advertising into a tournament that is already bloated with commercialism.

The finer details of the agreement between Sony, who have paid $1.8bn for the 10-year broadcast rights to the IPL, – despite agreeing to a $918m fee last year – and league officials were still being thrashed out last night but it is understood each time-out, to be taken after 10 overs of every innings, will be split into three two-and-a-half-minute chunks.

The first will focus on activity at the ground, from player huddles to musical entertainment; the second will be a commercial break; and the third is up for sale to bidders able to spare $1m a time. Queen Rania of Jordan, who is better known for her philanthropy than her love of cricket, is believed to have bought the first dozen or so slots to run a series of educational broadcasts aimed at the children of South Africa.

IPL officials have asked Sony to incorporate an ambitious 2000 seconds – or 31 minutes – of advertising per game into the actual playing time. Since each match in the Twenty20 competition is scheduled to last 160 minutes, excluding the mid-innings break, that could be pushing things, although IPL officials are said to be convinced that 40 seconds between overs and 40-60 seconds between wickets will allow enough time.

One production insider described the task as "virtually impossible" but the desire of Lalit Modi, the league's highly ambitious chairman and commissioner, to milk his cash cow for all it's worth appears to know no bounds.