Corporate giant Sahara ends sponsorship of Indian cricket

Bangalore/Mumbai, Feb 4 (PTI) Indian cricket was today hit by a major sponsorship crisis after Sahara India ended its 11-year-old financial ties with the BCCI and also pulled out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) by withdrawing from ownership of the Pune Warriors team just hours before the players auction for the fifth edition of the Twenty20 limited overs cricket. Unfazed by the surprise development, the Board of Control for Cricket in India made it clear that rules would not be bent for any IPL franchisee but it would still reach out to the aggrieved Sahara "as soon as practicable to clarify its intentions." The IPL authorities also went ahead with the auction, saying that no written communication had come from Sahara about their pullout. Sahara's decision to severe all ties with the BCCI may put the Board in a spot of bother as it had struggled to find long-term team sponsors in the past. The team's miserable show during the tours of Australia and England will only compound their problems. Sahara, a corporate giant, gave detailed reasons for its "emotional decision" to pull out from BCCI as well as the IPL and accused the Board of not giving due consideration to its genuine grievances. Sahara had signed a renewed agreement with the BCCI on July 1, 2010 till December 31, 2013 and was paying Rupees 33.4 million (about USD 68,000) per Test match, one-day international and Twenty20 International under the new terms. "The decision we took to end ties was not a bad one at all. We had enough of it. Any relationship does not break on one single issue only. We had a long relationship. It has to do with many issues and has happened continuously," Sahara Group chief Subroto Roy said. Roy said Sahara had approached the BCCI to settle the issues through arbitration and it had even proposed an arbitrator but the Cricket Board was not interested. Roy said considering the number of matches reduced from the originally-proposed 94, Pune Warriors paid 25 per cent more money to the Cricket Board for owning the franchisee. According to top sources, the main bone of contention is on Sahara's marquee player in the IPL Yuvraj Singh, who is currently recovering from tumour in the lungs. His unavailability in the IPL this season prompted Sahara to ask the BCCI that the price of USD 1.8 million on the batsman be added to their overall purse for the players auction but the request was turned down. The BCCI, on its part, stuck to the rule book though it was prepared to have talks with Sahara to resolve the issue. The Board said Sahara could have picked a player during the transfer window after the auction instead of asking for bending of rules. Sahara said it was severing ties with BCCI with a "heavy heart" after sponsoring Indian cricket for 11 years. PTI