SRK offers another olive branch to Ganguly

NEW DELHI: Extending another olive branch to Sourav Ganguly , Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan said that the decision to drop the former Indian captain from the Kolkata Knight Riders team was taken with a very heavy heart.

Talking to reporters, King Khan said, he always wanted Sourav to be part of Kolkata Knight Riders.

"Dada is like a younger brother to me and I want to win more games together," Shah Rukh added.

Looking for a better future of his team, Shahrukh wants to keep sacrifices and issues behind to emerge as winners, more importantly play with the right spirit.

Indians 7 biggest grossers at IPL auction 2011

NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) auction 2011 has predictably demolished a lot of myths and theories about both the sport and business. For one, the sentimental value of players was not taken into account, even if they were Sourav Ganguly, Brian Lara or Mark Boucher. Two, the realisation that it is safer to invest in Indians than chase the mirage of overseas players.

At the IPL mini auction the year before last, there was a hue and cry over the entire Pakistan lot going unsold. By the same argument, after the two-day auction, quite a few Twenty20 specialists from England, South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka were left untouched by the owners of the ten franchises.

The owners were willing to be charitable to the Dravids and the Laxmans or pay four young Indians upwards of $2 million rather than looking wide-eyed at highly-rated overseas players.

Even Gautam Gambhir did not think he would lead the pack of multimillionaires with a whopping $2.4 million (11.04 crore), followed by Yusuf Pathan and Robin Uthappa $2.1m (9.66 cr) and Rohit Sharma $2m (9.20 cr). Three other Indians -- Irfan Pathan, Yuvraj Singh and Saurabh Tiwari - are not very far from the two-million-mark.

Contrast these figures with the highest paid overseas player Mahela Jayawrdene's $1.5m and the other two foreigners in the million bracket to get an insight into the mindset of the moneybags controlling the franchises. Only two other overseas players, David Hussey and Dale Steyn could get to a little over a million dollars each.

In the first auction in 2008, people were left gaping at Mahendra Singh Dhoni getting $1.5 million and a year later Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen's price tag of $1.55m and that figure looked obscene. What can you say now, that a clutch of brash young men were bought for over two million each?

Franchise owners knew that they would have to shell out almost double the amount they had the last time for marquee players and the value-added investment for promising players this time around. It was well known a year ago that some of the players will cross the two-million figure at this auction and so the market watchers were not surprised at all at the turn of events. What they might not have expected is the inflated sums some of the Indian players were bought for.

Curiously, the players retained by the franchises are all Indians. When it came to the auction, teams like Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings tried their best to win back players who served them well in the first three seasons.

Going by the same yardstick, many felt the inclusion of Sourav Ganguly would have immensely enhanced the brand value of Kolkata Knight Riders, but then the professional management brought in by the owners thought otherwise. Come to think of it, KKR is the only franchise that did not have any of its owners at the auction table.

Franchises have realised that their brand value will be enriched by local players and those in the catchment areas, not all those super stars from overseas who just go through their motions and that, too, if they condescend to play at all. It happened with Chris Gayle, Ricky Ponting et al.

A look at the composition of the teams makes it clear that the accent is more on the Indians as they have to fill in seven slots in the team as against a maximum of four overseas players. Some owners smartly invested in players who have done well in domestic cricket.

With former captains Anil Kumble and Stephen Fleming, Geoff Lawson, David Whatmore and Darren Lehmann having a bigger say in strategising, the owners worked it out all well.

The fact that some of the overseas coaches went round watching the Ranji Trophy matches in the last couple of weeks made them plump for young Indians, ignoring players from their own countries. That explains how someone like Murali Kartik could get a good price after going unsold the first time when he went under the hammer.

The squads will get their final shape with the inclusion of uncapped players from their catchment areas and that pool has some terrific talent. The first three seasons have thrown up a fair sprinkling of bright young players, some of whom have gone to play for the country in limited-overs games.

It's now truly the Indian Premier League!

IPL-4 auction: Clash of billionaire egos and a bit of business

By design or fate, all things related to the Indian Premier League always start off with a bang. Be it action on the field or in the auction room. In 2008, Kiwi keeper Brendon McCullum kicked off the IPL era in Bangalore in grand style, with a 74-ball 158, after a memorable fireworks display funded by Vijay Mallya.

Snugly fitting into that narrative, and in the same city, the very first golden ball containing opener Gautam Gambhir's name landed in British auctioneer Richard Madley's hands, setting off a fierce four-cornered bidding war that eventually ended with Shah Rukh Khan's Knight Riders forking out a record $2.4 million.

Whether he merits the price tag is a debate fans could engage in for the next three years. What is certain is that the IPL has serendipitously hit upon a bonus idea of televised player auctions that, in many ways, are as exciting as some of the matches, and generate enough froth leading up to the cricket.

Has SRK, yet again, assembled a team of Cassandras? Can the vast coffers of the country's richest man buy peace between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds? Is Shane Warne still as good at leg-spin as he now is on the poker/bar table?

The two-day trading in Bangalore’s Royal Gardenia furthers the buzz around brand IPL. Vijay Mallya squaring up against Preity Zinta to enlist the services of a 20-year-old also makes for good TV.

As does the sight of seasoned entrepreneurs, who cut million-dollar deals for a living, nervously squeezing a stress ball when the auctioneer's hammer is about to go down on their preferred player. Not surprisingly, after the first round of closed-door auction in 2008, BCCI opted to beam the events live.

The IPL player auction is a unique event in the world of sportonomics. It's a combination of futures trading and the famed Pushkar cattle fair that’s now a tourist attraction. In 2008, Australian legend Adam Gilchrist couldn't quite come to terms with cricket’s laissez-faire and confessed to feeling “a bit like a cow”. “But it's interesting and unique,” he added.

No other big money franchise sport — football, baseball or basketball -- offers the public the perverse viewing pleasure of reputations being consigned to the dung heap (think Brian Lara and Sourav Ganguly, circa 2011) by hardnosed bean counters or newbies of modest means like Saurabh Tiwary and Rohit Sharma turning overnight millionaires.

For franchise owners, the entire IPL jamboree, and the auctions in particular, is a great opportunity to give their heirs a taste of business management. At almost every team table a member of the business family’s next generation was taking active part in the bidding process.

Gayatri Reddy, the daughter of Deccan Chronicle promoter Ram Reddy, made every bid and addressed the media, with her father often nodding in approval. Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy’s son Sushanto was the public face of the Pune Warriors franchise at the auction.

India Cements chairman N Srinivasan's son-in-law has been a hands-on manager for almost two years at Chennai Super Kings; and with Srinivasan facing uncomfortable questions about conflict of interest in his capacity as an

IPL governing council member and franchise owner, he has let Meiyappan represent the team’s ownership. Nattily dressed Siddharth Mallya was Vijay Mallya’s key confidant in this season's auction. He took an active role in advising his billionaire father on the extent of Royal Challengers bid and when to exit.

When he was miffed by Kings XI’s last-minute bid for Saurabh Tiwary, Mallya Junior took matters into his own hand by walking over to the Mohali team to express his displeasure. "Siddharth spent several days with team mentor Kumble to finalise the team’s wishlist and work out the auction economics,” says a key Bangalore franchise official. “He was as active as his father in drafting the team’s youth strategy.”

“It’s bit like rich fathers gifting their children a real-time Monopoly set,” says Santosh Desai, CEO Future Brands. "The auctions are glamorous, televised live and, like in any business, you have to make quick valuation decisions and have team composition in mind.

It offers a perfect platform for public visibility for CEO kids. Just as men of the family would do the real business and let a young relative handle ‘soft’ areas like advertising, Gen Next is being given a role in a new, exciting, high visibility enterprise.”