Cricket-Pune, Rajkot named new IPL franchises for next two years (updated)

Firstsource Solutions

08/12/2015 12:18

* New franchises selected through reverse bidding 
    * BCCI says ensuring anti-corruption measures 
 
 (Adds details, quotes, byline) 
    By Amlan Chakraborty 
    NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Western Indian cities of Pune 
and Rajkot will be home to two new franchises in the Indian 
Premier League (IPL) for the next two years, the country's 
cricket board (BCCI) announced on Tuesday. 
    The new teams, for which there were a total of five bidders, 
fill the void left by the two-year suspensions on the Chennai 
and Rajasthan franchises following an illegal betting scandal 
that broke out in 2013. 
    New Rising, a consortium led by Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of 
the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, bagged the Pune team while mobile 
manufacturers Intex made a successful bid for Rajkot in a 
reverse bidding process. 
    Under reverse bidding, investors were asked to bid lower 
than the base price of 400 million rupees (about $6 million), 
the maximum amount the BCCI offered to pay from the IPL central 
revenue pool to the new owner. 
    Having bid in the negative, New Rising will pay 160 million 
rupees while Intex will shell out 100 million rupees for their 
respective teams, BCCI president Shashank Manohar told 
reporters. 
    The new bids would make the BCCI, already world's richest 
cricket board, richer by nearly 1.8 billion rupees, he added. 
    Both new teams will take part in a player draft next Tuesday 
and there will be a players' auction on Feb. 6, Manohar added. 
    The Twenty20 league, with a $3.5 billion estimated brand 
value and boasting of Bollywood stars and major conglomerates as 
investors, has been dogged by corruption allegations for years. 
    In July a panel set up by India's top court recommended 
suspending the franchise owners of the two teams for two years 
following an illegal betting and spot-fixing scandal. 
    Manohar said the board was doing its best to tackle 
corruption in the league which will have its next edition from 
April 9 to May 29. 
    "People can have perceptions, it's our duty to change that 
perception," said Manohar, who also heads the International 
Cricket Council (ICC). 
    "I met the Maharashtra chief minister about 10 days back and 
requested him for a dedicated unit which would give its inputs 
to the board and the anti-corruption unit... and the chief 
minister readily agreed. 
    "We don't have police powers. Police can intercept telephone 
conversation between people, police can interrogate anybody 
which we can't. With the police power and government help, we 
will be able to deliver a clean game." 
    ($1 = 66.7550 Indian rupees) 
 
 (Editing by Sudipto Ganguly) 
 ((sudipto.ganguly@thomsonreuters.com; +91 22 6180 7264; Reuters 
Messaging: sudipto.ganguly.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: CRICKET INDIA/IPL TEAMS