BCCI Rejects Sahara’s Demand For Fielding 6 Foreign Players

Very recently, following the illness and subsequently the inability of Yuvraj Singh, the young and flamboyant captain of Pune Warriors, one of the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams for this year’s fifth edition of the league, to play, Sahara India, the franchisee had placed a number of demands on the BCCI for redressal.

Two among these are permission to take on a substitute player in place of Yuvraj and permission to field six players from foreign origin.

While the Pune Warriors were granted permission to take on a substitute for Yuvraj Singh, their plea for having six foreign players playing for them was turned down. The BCCI’s working committee appeared to be unanimous in their decision to refuse Sahara Group from fielding the six foreign players citing rules and stating that it would be doing injustice to the eight other franchisees.

The board was of the opinion that this demand was illogical and not consistent with laid down rules that were very clear and contended that therefore they had no option but to turn down the request.

Two other demands were found to be quite reasonable and therefore were granted. The BCCI’s board president made it amply clear that they would have no issues if the Sahara Group found and signed up a substitute for the incapacitated captain Yuvraj and that it was an entitlement which was obviously their right.

The other demand for having a strategic partner was also not contested by the board and granted straight away. The argument in this case being that since Sahara India has pre-committed itself to Rs.1000 crore of All-India Social Development programs, they would have to look for a strategic partner.

The rejection of their demand for accommodating six foreign origin players, however did not go down well with the Sahara India officials and has led to a stalemate kind of a situation in which Sahara India has not only decided to withdraw its team from the fifth edition of the IPL, but have also taken the hard decision to withdraw their sponsorship to the Indian cricket team entirely.

The BCCI has justified its stand by saying that it was going by the rules and stating that in all fairness to the eight other franchisees, it could not possibly think of favoring one single franchise.

However, Mr. Subrata Roy, Chairman of the Sahara Group maintained that the rules were not rigid like the rules of the constitution of the Government of India but rules framed by the BCCI themselves and that they should not follow the rules strictly by the letter, but rather go by its spirit.

The BCCI however, in deference to the fact that Sahara India had sponsored the Team India for well over eleven years now, agreed to a series of meetings to discuss the issue. In these meetings, it transpired that the Sahara Group had put forward the argument that since there was no other player who could match up to the high standards set by Yuvraj, they should be allowed to have an extra player from overseas in the playing eleven.

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