BCCI likely to terminate Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals

The working group formed by BCCI to decide the nature of implementation of the verdict given by the Lodha Committee on IPL spot-fixing scandal met the officials of Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians on Saturday.

The two teams will be renamed and will be run by new administrations as far as the reports are concerned.

With all stakeholders being in favour of an eight-team event, the group is likely to propose the BCCI to invite new bids for two teams. While the working group has been busy meeting all stakeholders, its legal team has been simultaneously busy charting out the future course of action in case termination of franchises is the next step forward. “The BCCI can do that”, said Justice Lodha.

“There won’t be value erosion”. The working group completed meeting all six franchises as the two suspended franchises CSK and Rajasthan Royals were not invited for discussions.

The KXIP owner is of the view that “sponsors will begin to lose faith in the running of the league if there is no stability”. This move, looked upon as one of the various image-cleaning efforts of franchise cricket in India, has not gone down well with the teams’ ardent supporters. I’m a speculator and might want to see better returns.

Though promoters of CSK transferred their shares to non-promoters in September 2014, the MS Dhoni-led side still needs to come out clean on the conflict of interest charge in order to play in the next edition of the cash-rich league.

“Most of the franchises have called for the event to be an eight-team affair”. The Champions League was discontinued because there are no takers for these foreign teams. Instead of these teams, what will we do, whether other two teams will be brought in or not and how.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been steadfastly maintaining that the Lodha Committee decision to suspend Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals has not had any impact on the commercial partners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) but the league’s title sponsor, Pepsi, is treading a cautious path. Apart from them Harsh Goenka of the RPG Group (a central sponsor), broadcasters MSM India and Star TV also met with the working group. However, in another development, the board might also appeal in court against the Kochi Tuskers arbitration. For now though, sources said BCCI is not including Kochi in its scheme of things. “Anyway, we’re going to speak to the Pepsi officials in a day or two”, the IPL chairman told this paper on Sunday night.