Players from Kochi Team To be Compensated, May Feature in IPL 5 Auctions

Even as the BCCI made the express decision to terminate the Kochi IPL Franchisee from the IPL 5 season, question marks were immediately raised about the future of the players signed to play for the Kochi Tuskers Kerala. But perhaps they will have another opportunity in the IPL with the BCCI planning to take necessary action.

Kochi Tuskers Kerala

When an IPL franchisee was terminated as abruptly as the Kochi Tuskers Kerala was asked, there were concerns all round that the several players – both international and domestic – who signed up with the franchisee as part of the IPL 4 auctions would be hard done by the decision. With payments looming and future in doubt, naturally this was one of the biggest concerns for the Kochi team. After all the Kochi team boasts of names such as Mahela Jayawardene, the KTK captain, local boy Sreesanth, Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum amongst the more identifiable names.

However, with the Kochi team having been terminated with no case for return as the BCCI clarified its stance through their new President, N. Srinivasan, that would have left several players without a contract or another season in prospect, not to mention the payment they were due to receive for their services in the IPL 4 season.

The BCCI has apparently take those issues into account and although there are no concrete plans in place, the BCCI is said to be contemplating compensating the players from the bank guarantee that the BCCI encashed from the Kochi franchisee for any outstanding dues. Furthermore, the players will have the opportunity to join the other teams when the IPL 5 auctions are conducted something perhaps early next year. Although the prospect on that is not quite clear, it would seem apparent that whether the BCCI decided to with a nine team IPL or ten team IPL, the players will have the opportunity to sign up for some of the other teams, not entirely being their IPL prospects to a standstill, although it would be hard to see which teams actually can afford to buy some of the teams since they will have already built their core strengths with a more careful IPL 4 auction planning.

The Kochi Tuskers Kerala team were one of the two new IPL teams for the IPL 4 season along with the Pune Warriors. But their troubles began rather early with Lalit Modi and went through a gamut of problems with the BCCI even issuing a termination notice last year before matters appeared to have been settled as far as the shareholding within the franchisee was concerned. However, troubles kept brewing for the team owners and even some of their decisions with regard to the auctions seemed like they did not quite have a team strategy in mind.

Now it would appear that their turmoil has reached a boiling point with the players naturally insecure about the road forward with such a severe decision by the BCCI during its AGM. Even if the players are now thrown into the auction, they will have to drive a hard bargain with other teams having already had another opportunity of a reshuffle and doing a better job perhaps second time round in picking their team. Will the BCCI come up with another novelty to accommodate these players?