Saturday, January 23, 2010

All IPL teams agreed to shun Pak players

What was suspected after Tuesday’s auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is now confirmed - there was indeed a consensus among the team franchisees that none of them would bid for the Pakistani players.Underlying this consensus were ambiguous signals from officialdom. Union sports minister MS Gill went on record on Wednesday insisting that neither his ministry nor the government had in any way nudged IPL teams to treat Pakistani players as untouchables. However, sources in the Indian cricket board (BCCI) gave TOI details of what transpired in the run-up to the auction, which suggest a more nuanced reality.

According to the sources, the BCCI initially told the franchisees that they could bid for Pakistani players and treat them just like cricketers from any other part of the world. Around the middle of December, the board also assured the teams that it would chip in with help for visas and other diplomatic clearances from the government.However, when team owners asked the board "what guarantee will the franchisees have?", the board spoke to some government officials in the last week of December and reverted with the message that the government - understandably - couldn’t give "any guarantee". The prospects of possible terror attacks clearly contributed to this message.Hence the IPL teams ignored the Pakistan players in auction as there was "no guarantee" from the government that these players would get visas and other clearances.

No comments:

Post a Comment