IPL: Kochi still up in the air, Shilpa Shetty lets fly at the BCCI

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I must admit that the IPL going-ons have all the makings of a soap opera.

It has all the ingredients – money, glamour and sex appeal (courtesy the Bollywood biggies), a decamping honcho, exotic locations, politics and more twists and turns than a pot-boiler.

Add much needed melodrama and you have a hit formula.

A few bytes on the continuing saga:

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The mystery about the conflicting reports about the Kochi submission to the BCCI on Wednesday has been resolved.

It appears that there were two letters sent to the BCCI, one on behalf of the majority stakeholders submitting their joint venture (JV) proposal; this allocates just 10% equity to Rendezvous Sports against the earlier agreed 25% sweat equity.

Rendezvous, on the other hand, have requested an extension of the deadline by another ten days.

It is also expected that the two warring parties will be sending each other legal notices in the forthcoming days.

This jeopardises any chances of a quick resolution to the Kochi problem.

The BCCI have stated that if the Kochi proposal is not agreeable to them, fresh tenders will be invited for new teams.

Whether the new bids will be met with enthusiasm by prospective investors is another matter altogether.

Also, it is to be seen if the BCCI will be more stringent next time around in accepting bids from entities , especially unregistered ones.

Brand IPL has taken a huge hit in the past few months; it is unlikely that valuations will surpass the earlier record heights.

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Shilpa Shetty , the co-owner of the Rajashthan Royals team, finally broke her silence last evening launching a tirade against the BCCI move to disbar her team from the IPL.

Shetty asserted that the BCCI had all the time in the world to reject her spouse, Raj Kundra’s addition to the shareholders list and called the BCCI decision unfair. She also called for a fair and balanced enquiry.

To quote the thespian:

“We don’t want to hurl stones and have not done something wrong. Even if we have done something wrong, I think, as a franchise… the passion we have done it with, we need to be treated with a little more fairness,”

“In any business if you have defaulted, you have to pay for that and compensate. Just throwing us is not a solution. If we have irked (anyone), we are willing to face the consequences. But you can’t just cancel us out,”

It is anybody’s guess whether Ms. Shetty’s outburst will have any effect on the reticent BCCI officials.

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Quote of the day:Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying. – Ronald Reagan

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