IPL 4 auction: Mumbai Indians question last minute changes

Mumbai: In what seems to be a serious allegation, the Mumbai Indians have written a letter to every member of the IPL Governing Council, expressing their view that the fourth IPL auction recently held in Bangalore was allegedly rigged.

In the letter, a copy of which is with NDTV, Mumbai Indians have accused the IPL Governing Council of changing the auction norms in the last minute without reason, resulting in a lack of transparency in the process.

Indiawin Sports Pvt Ltd (ISPL), owners of the Mumbai Indians team, said in the letter that players were auctioned through a pre-decided order of auction list, as opposed to an initial instruction that they would be arranged into sets and the order for which is to be drawn randomly.

The change in the norm was intimated to the franchisees on January 7, just a day before the auction, it said.

"Any change of auction rules process or procedure in this manner and at the last minute can have any justification if, and only if, strong justifiable emergent reasons can be demonstrated to be present," the letter said.

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"We see a complete absence of such reason or justification," it added, asking the IPL GC members to explain at whose instance was the change introduced.

The letter said the primary purpose of deciding the order of the auction through random draw in the auction room in the presence of bidders was to ensure transparency and a level playing field to all the franchisees.

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Also, it was to ensure that the franchisees were not only privy to the process but were treated in the same manner and no particular team received any preferred treatment, it added.

Without naming any franchise in particular, the letter does seem to suggest that the rules were tweaked in favour of the Chennai Superkings franchise, owned by BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan.

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The letter written by Reliance Industries Executive Director Nikhil R Meshwani on behalf of ISPL, demanded an explanation from the IPL governing council members for the last minute change, besides asking under which body of the IPL authorised the amendment of the auction norms and other details.

The players' auction held on January 8-9 saw Gautam Gambhir became the costliest cricketer in the IPL by fetching a whopping USD 2.4 million (approx Rs 11.04 crore) on the first day, while former stars like Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara found no takers. (With PTI Inputs)

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