Sanjay Dutt shows interest in buying IPL franchise

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt had shown interest in buying an Indian Premier League franchise when he met the cash-rich Twenty20 League Commissioner Lalit Modi here.

"Yes, he met Lalit Modi yesterday to get details about buying an IPL team," top sources in the Cricket Board said.

Dutt is trying to follow the footsteps of Bollywood celebrities Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla and Shilpa Shetty in buying stakes in IPL franchises.

Shah Rukh is the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders in which Juhi Chawla has stakes while Preity and Shilpa have stakes in the Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals franchises respectively.

Dutt is the second Bollywood celebrity after Salman Khan to have met Modi recently to discuss about buying an IPL franchise.

Last month Khan had met Modi and evinced interest in buying one of the two new franchise teams which are to be added in the 2011 edition of the tournament and for which auctions are planned to be held next summer.

PTI

The sold and the beautiful

PANAJI: Superstition or plain coincidence? Preity Zinta, the part owner of Team Mohali, had walked into last year’s IPL auction in a striking red dress. On Friday, the lady wore red again. And that was not the only similarity between the first IPL cricket bazaar and this one.

Bollywood actresses in designer togs, industrialists fiddling with Blackberrys after arriving in their Bentleys and Mercs, and the astronomical sums spent at the end of it - all reminiscent of the previous year’s bidding - made one forget the recession. Dollars, at an all time high these days, were showered on cricketers in a manner that simply mocked the very idea of a financial crunch.

It was all done amid smiles and an air of informality at the picturesque Fort Aguada. Vijay Mallya, sporting a Hawaiian shirt; Ness Wadia in torn jeans and a tee; Shilpa Shetty holding boyfriend Raj Kundra’s hand, hardly made it look like a working day.

Preity and Shilpa Shetty chatted, Juhi Chawla kept flashing her million-dollar smile and amid the pleasantries, it was hard to remember that everyone had assembled for serious business.

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