Arguably the greatest spinner of all time Muttiah Muralitharan created a stir in the cricketing fraternity when he revealed the BCCI still owe $400,000 and his teammate Mahela Jayawardene $500,000.
The incident heated up after the BCCI website had recently mentioned of compensating 2.2 crores to Mohammed Shami for missing out the last IPL because of injuries. In response, Brad Hodge tweeted a couple of days back , "I see Mohammed Shami got compensated for injury during IPL in 2015 from BCCI. Any chance they can compensate the Kochi Tuskers players”.
Kochi Tuskers participated in IPL in the year 2011 before they got terminated from BCCI as they were unable to submit their bank guarantee. The team was put together by Rendezvous Sports World.
Apart from Brad Hodge the prominent names who donned the Kochi colours are Murali, Mahela , Laxman, Ravindra Jadeja . Following their termination the players were put into the auction for the subsequent season.
In the year 2012, the BCCI suggested the foreign players to sue Kochi Tuskers as they were unable to pay the players. After a long and hard- fought battle, they had something to smile for when the court ordered the BCCI to pay 550 crores for terminating the franchise .
"The BCCI still owes me $400,000, and Mahela, who was the captain of the team, $500,000. I've written or spoken to the BCCI officials so many times in this regard, but despite many assurances on their part, nothing has happened. Overall, the BCCI owes the Kochi players more than $2 million. We're still waiting to get 40% of the money due to us.
“The franchise paid us only 60% of our share, before asking us to take the remaining 40% from the BCCI, since they claimed that the board had kept their guarantee money with them," Muralitharan told Times of India from Colombo.
"I've played in so many leagues around the world, but no board has done something like this. Like the players, the board too is supposed to honour a contract. It shows that they don't care for the players. They're just bothered with running the tournament.”
He also said that for him and Mahela, they can still keep healthy and fit without that money but what for the lesser known cricketers for whom this money would have meant everything.
In response to these comments a BCCI official said that it’s for the franchise to pay them back and not BCCI. He also said that the matter is in dispute and they hope the players will be paid once the matter is settled in court.
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