My opinion: IPL puts off choosing 2 new teams, restarts process

My opinion: IPL puts off choosing 2 new teams, restarts process

Amol Karhadkar , Hindustan Times
Email Author

All those anxiously waiting to know who the two new owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) teams will be will have to wait another two weeks.

Instead of opening the tenders submitted by three bidders in Mumbai on Sunday as they were scheduled to, the IPL Governing Council decided to re-issue the tender on Tuesday, removing some stringent clauses from the earlier tender.

“We received letters from many companies who expressed interest but said that the $1 billion (Rs 4,500 crore) net worth criteria, which owners of existing franchises had not been asked for, was a problem. They asked why they were being asked for the new criteria, which eliminates them from bidding. Hence the clause has been amended,” IPL Chairman Lalit Modi said after the meeting.

This effectively means the new tender will be available on Tuesday and bids can be submitted till 10am on March 21. The bids will be opened one hour later in Chennai.

Though the IPL also reduced the advance bank guarantee from $100 million (Rs 450 core) to $10 milllion (Rs 45 crore) they stuck to the base price of $225 million (Rs 1012 crore) for each franchise.

“We discussed the possibility of raising this a bit, but eventually stuck with the same base price,” Modi said.

Earlier on Sunday, representatives of the three bidders had to wait for almost an hour before being told about the re-tender. They were the Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, the Delhi-based Jaypee Group, and a consortium including Videocon chief Venugopal Dhoot, real estate giant Atul Chordia and Bollywood biggies Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor (who had submitted a bid for Pune).

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My comments and post comments of it on Face Book as follows:

Mr. Lalit Modi's greed for money will very soon dump Indian Cricket. The day is not very far that the so called promoted players of IPL will become a national burden with their conduct, as was seen many times during the past year by the highly paid, new generation players in many venues. Wish, the same support is obtained by and for other sports including hockey.

Taking on the recent hockey matches, one of our player was banned for three matches, even though, there was no formal complaint lodged against him by the opposing Pakistani player. It totally disrupted a winning combination and momentum gained from the first match. I believe this would not have happened if the corporate force was there in full strength behind our hockey team. What our cricket team gets is an enviable support and it is almost similar to the “rich getting richer” theory and they continue to enjoy the greater privileges. We need cricket but with lesser money involved.