Putting to rest speculations about their participation in the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League, IPL Commissioner Chirayu Amin today said the fact that English cricketers were included in the players’ auction means they are available for the tournament.
“There is no issue at all, otherwise they would not have been included in the auction,” said Amin on the sidelines of the first day of the players auction here on Saturday.
“There is no question that English players wont play. The fact that the franchises have bought them (English players) means they have decided to play them and would now look to fit them into the team composition,” he added.
There were reports that English players would need a ’no objection certificate’ (NOC) from the England and Wales Cricket Board to participate in the mega-event starting April 8 as the ECB did not want to overburden its players because the IPL starts just five days after the World Cup.
England are touring Australia since November, where they have already played the Ashes series, and will now be seen in action in the Twenty20s and an ODIs.
When asked Amin why BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, who is a de facto owner of the CSK, was sitting along with him and Rajiv Shukla instead of his franchisee members during the auction today, the IPL chief played down the issue, saying, “He sat there as one of the members of the governing council.”
Meanwhile, the franchisee owners expressed satisfaction on the players they have bought on the first day of the auction.
“We have a good set of players and we are happy about it,” Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd partner Vivek Venugopal said after the first day’s auction.
The owner of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Gurunath Meiyappan said that their aim was to retain as much players as possible from the previous team which played in the last three editions of the IPL.
“Lot of efforts have been put behind the team. So we were trying to retain as much of the previous team as possible,” said Meiyappan.
He, however, added that although they were keen to buy Muttiah Muralitharan, who was an intergal part of the team in the last three seasons, in the end they gave up to Kochi as the new franchise was bidding desperately for the Sri Lankan.
