The Cricket Board-floated Indian Premier League will conduct a second players' auction next week to enable franchises, that have money left after the initial auction held on February 20, from the $ 5 million cap, supplement their player base.

"We plan to hold an internal players auction next week with only the team mangement who have money left (in their kitty) to supplement their players," Lalit Modi, IPL Commissioner and Chairman, told PTI in an interview.

Each franchise was to spend a minimum of $ 3.3 million and a maximum of $ 5 million for buying players put up at the auction as well as paying for the five icon players whose value was fixed at 15 per cent over and above the costliest player bid successfully by that particular franchise.

Sachin Tendulkar [Images], Rahul Dravid [Images], Sourav Ganguly [Images], Yuvraj Singh [Images] and Virender Sehwag [Images] are the icon players for Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mohali and Delhi franchises respectively.

The first auction held last month saw 79 players snapped up by the eight franchises for sums ranging from $ 4,00,000 (base price) to $ 1.5 million (amount paid for Indian one-day and T20 captain by Chennai franchise India Cements [Get Quote]).

Modi admitted that the response for the first auction was a bit above what was expected, while mentioning that it was not extra-ordinary considering it was a pioneering effort towards the dawn of a new era in the game.

"To be absolutely honest, the response garnered by the DLF Indian Premier League has been a tad above expectation. But I would not state it is out of the ordinary, when we consider that this was a first towards a bold, new cricketing era," he said.

Meanwhile, the man behind the Cricket Board-promoted Indian Premier League (IPL) feels that gradually the twenty20 league would become a part of the International Cricket Council's Future Tours Programme.

The IPL Chairman and Commissioner, however, dispelled fears expressed in some quarters that the League, to be contested by eight Indian city-based franchises from April 18 to June 1 for a multi-million dollar prize money, will pose a threat to international cricket.

"The BCCI has always maintained that FTP is sacrosanct for all cricket playing nations of the world. We (BCCI) will continue to fulfill all our commitments to the FTP," he told PTI.

"We need to realise that DLF Indian Premier League is here to stay and it will carve a niche for itself in the cricketing calendar. It's club level domestic cricket which other countries have been playing for a while.

"So we will sit and discuss this with the ICC [Images] to ensure that going forward the DLF IPL becomes part of the FTP," said Modi.

Contrary to apprehensions of Australian skipper Ricky Ponting [Images], he sees no chance of players retiring from international cricket to concentrate on IPL as this would be detrimental to their own interest.

"The free market system is purely based on the performance of a cricketer at the international level. At the (players') auction franchise owners, I believe, rationalised a players' future potential to deliver results and their skills to determine his fair value, thus helping most cricketers discover their true net worth," Modi said.

"A direct case in point being the auctioned bids for the stars of gen-next like Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary. Thus, simply put, it would be detrimental for a cricketer to retire from international cricket just to play in the IPL," Modi said.

Modi said he is confident that IPL would in some time be a direct competitor to the English Premier League football which has a following in many parts of the world, including in Asia, and will also revolutionise world cricket.

"Yes, the DLF IPL will someday compete with the global institution, that is the English Premier League. Of that I have no doubt in my mind. Especially, since the Twenty20 format will also make for a great spectator experience," he said.

"In the interim we hope to achieve some polarisation in terms of a 'my team, my city' syndrome to start of with, which will help the franchises in the DLF IPL grow their fan base.

"We hope to build on that over the next few years, but I have no doubt in my mind that we have a product that will revolutionise world cricket - the way it's played, watched and followed," Modi emphasised.

"The action-packed Twenty20 format is fast, furious and adrenalin-packed to draw in the crowds and an entire new generation of cricket lovers through the gates at stadiums," he predicted.

The BCCI vice-President was also optimistic about the IPL would popularising the game in other parts of the world like USA, Europe and China.