IPL....

Day in Pics: March 7MUMBAI: The much-awaited Sunday announcements of the winning bids for two new franchisees of the Indian Premier League (IPL) sprung an unexpected surprise after the League decided to cancel the entire tender process and pushed the date back by two weeks.

IPL, evaluated by private financial agencies to be more than $2.4 billion after the first two editions, had kept the floor price to bid for a franchise at $225 million.

Further, there were stringent rules in place for potential bidders with IPL demanding the overall net worth of the bidder to be $1 billion, asking for a bid performance guarantee of $100 million (Rs 460 cr) and an eventual bank guarantee of up to or equivalent of the bidding amount.

A few companies, which had earlier shown interest in bidding, and especially one particular corporate firm that has been hugely involved with the business of cricket in the country, wrote to the cricket board (BCCI) complaining about the rules which "did not make sense". "Why is it necessary for the bidder to have an overall net worth of $1 billion?" it wrote to the Board.

One corporate firm wrote to BCCI complaining why it was necessary for a bidder to have an overall net worth of $1 billion, while another letter complained that it was unfair to demand such a high amount as bank guarantee whereas franchisees who bought teams in 2008 were paying only 10% of the total bidding amount.

This was reported in TOI on February 27 quoting certain clauses in the tender document which had become the bone of contention.

BCCI took note of these letters and thus the whole tender process, which had only two potential bidders vying in the end, was cancelled on the eve of March 7. Board president Shashank Manohar was personally present on Saturday and Sunday to sort out the issue and it is learnt that there were serious questions raised.

Meanwhile, only two bids were in place on Sunday morning when the governing council members of IPL met in Mumbai. As reported by TOI, the Adani-group, led by its chairman Gautam Adani (who did not turn up for the bidding), had bid for Ahmedabad and Venugopal Dhoot, owner of Videocon, along with film stars Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Atul Chordia from Pune's Panchshil Group of Industries, had bid together for Pune.

"It is unfortunate. But there is a clause in the tender document which gives IPL the rights to re-tender and we have to abide. We had submitted the bid performance guarantee (of Rs 460 cr) and the bank guarantee (of approx Rs 5,000 cr). We will now bid again," Dhoot said.

QnA: Is IPL the biggest threat to cricket?