Mumbai,December 15 : New Rising, Sanjiv Goenka-owned Pune franchise and Rajkot franchise expressed their satisfaction with the first-ever player draft of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Pune franchise representative Subroto Talukdar, said that what was planned by his team had been accomplished at the draft, including the picking of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as their first choice.
“Whatever we had planned, we have got. We wanted Dhoni as we are a new franchise and want to build our brand and who better than Dhoni. He was an automatic choice. We have got the players we wanted,” he said.
“We were targetting eight players and got players of our priority. Manoj Tiwari and Ashok Dinda, who play for our company, were consulted. We have already talked to two contenders for coach,” he said while making it clear that Sourav Ganguly, an IPL Governing Council member, was not involved in the process though he is a partner in their Indian Super League football team Atletico de Kolkata.
“The name of the team and logo will be announced next week. We work out of Kolkata, so shifting to Pune will take some time. But we have the experience of running a team in ISL.”
Rajkot franchise owner Keshav Bansal also sounded pleased with his team’s picks.
“We had a strategy and we knew Dhoni will not be available. So Raina was a strong option. On the Rajkot pitch we need aggressive batsmen as well as strong bowlers. We needed to have a balanced team.”
He said his team, though missing the first eight seasons’ experience, will learn from past mistakes committed by the other teams.
“We are a new franchise while others have the advantage of playing in the first eight seasons. But we will learn from their mistakes. My personal twitter is flooded with tweets. We will be announcing the captain soon.”
“The BCCI has a fantastic senior management team, the chairman is fantastic, the president is fantastic and we have full faith in them,” he added.
The unsold players will now go to the players’ auction to be held on February 6, said IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla.
“The salary of players as per their contract with their former teams will be protected. The upper limit will be deducted from the total purse of Rs 66 crore. All will be put up on the website,” Shukla told a media conference after the draft.
Another BCCI source said the salary details will be revealed on the website after the first trading window closes on December 31.
“Both the teams (who have each spent Rs 39 crore today) are now left with Rs 27 crore each from the total purse to form the rest of the team,” he added.
“There are no catchment areas for the two teams,” said Shukla.
Shukla said that a decision whether to invite Pakistan players to play in IPL was different from the bilateral series between India and Pakistan that is hanging in the balance.
“The series against Pakistan is different and including Pakistan players in IPL is different. We will have to discuss with the franchises. As far as the series against Pakistan is concerned the same situation prevails. We have got no communication from the government,” he said.
Courtesy : PTI