Shifting of IPL unleashes a political mud-slinging

New Delhi, Mar 23 (PTI) The shifting of the Indian
Premier League to another country Monday turned into a
political slanging match with Home Minister P Chidambaram
hitting out at the Board of Control for Cricket in India
(BCCI) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for blaming the
government for relocating the event.

A day after the organisers took the surprise decision to
shift the Twenty20 tournament abroad, Chidambaram made a
scathing attack on BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley
for politicising the IPL issue.

As the IPL acquired a political hue, IPL Commissioner
Lalit Modi and some other officials prepared to leave for
South Africa and England to finalise the venue for the
cash-rich event.

While England was considered the favourite to host the
matches till Sunday, South Africa emerged as the front runner
Monday with one report claiming that Modi and his colleagues
will head to the rainbow nation first.

Weather turned out to be the main factor that swayed the
BCCI officials against using England as a venue. The officials
feared that rain would seriously disrupt the schedule of the
tournament to be held from April 10 to May 24.

Modi said that he had been booked both for England and
South Africa and it appears now that the venue of the
tournament may take a couple of more days before it is
finalised.

Modi will be accompanied by ICL CEO Sundar Raman and
Tournament Director Dhiraj Malhotra.

The shifting of the venue, meanwhile, has come as a
disappointment for the Indian players, now in Auckland.

Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir and L
Balaji rued missing the chance of playing in front of their
home crowd.

"It is disappointing that the IPL has been moved out of
India. We will certainly miss playing in front of our
supporters. It won't be the same," said Tendulkar, who is the
captain of Mumbai Indians team.

"It was a good concept to play home and away matches.
This is something that the teams will miss this time around,"
he said.

Yuvraj, who is also the skipper of Kings XI Punjab, said,
"It is sad that the IPL won't be held in India. But we have to
go ahead with it as it is the decision of the Board. As we
would be returning home from New Zealand after a long tour, we
hope we are allowed to take our families along," he added.

In Mumbai, the IPL received a shot in the arm with the
Mumbai High Court refusing to give any interim relief to Sony
in its row with BCCI with regard to IPL's broadcasting rights.

Sony has challenged termination of its contract by the
BCCI, but Justice S J Kathawalla today said that Sony cannot
be given any temporary relief, as it had not made World Sports
Group (Mauritius) a party.

BCCI, in the early hours of March 15, 2009 entered into a
new contract with WSGM, after terminating the contract with
Sony earlier evening.

The hearing of the case would resume on March 30, but
today's order says that BCCI-WSGM contract is not "null and
void", and "creation/transfer of rights in favour of WSGM is
absolute and complete". PTI