Names of the nine cities vying to host new IPL teams revealed

To which uncharted territory shall the IPL be moving to in 2016?

It had earlier been reported that nine cities were in contention to be hosting the two new teams in IPL 8, and it has now come out that those cities are Pune, Rajkot, Indore, Chennai, Dharamshala, Ranchi, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur and Cuttack, according to The Hindu.

Kochi and Jaipur have been eliminated from the possible list of cities, for undisclosed reasons.

There has been considerable interest to pick up the Invitation to Tender (ITT) form, to determine which the two teams will be to replace Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings – the two teams serving a 2 year ban for having partaken in match fixing activities in 2013.

The ITT has been made available at the BCCI office here from November 16 to 30 at a non-refundable and non-adjustable cost of Rs. 2 lakh.

Interested parties, which already includes several corporates, will be bidding to set up a team at any of these nine cities on December 8, starting at the base price of 40 crore. The players’ auction will be held in 2017.

Five players each from each of suspended franchises would be put up for draft while others will be auctioned.

Controversy over ownership of Chennai franchise

A Chennai-based corporate named Chettinad Cements has bought the Invitation To Tender (ITT) document from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) office. It is one of the five firms to have shown interest in owning a temporary IPL team, for the 2-year duration when Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals remain suspended from the league.

CSK, the existing Chennai franchise, are also owned by a Chennai-based cement company – India Cements, of which MS Dhoni is even the Vice-President and N Srinivasan the Managing Director.

No existing link has been found between India Cements, the party who have been banned, and Chettinad Cements – the party who are in line to be owning a Chennai-based team next season.

What muddies the waters even more is that Chettinad Cement is headed by M.A.M.R. Muthiah, who shares his name with bitter rival of N Srinivasan, AC Muthiah – leading sections of media to report that the new Chennai firm interested in IPL 8 was in fact owned by the former BCCI President.

Other firms who have expressed interest in owning the new teams include Videocon and the Goenka brothers.