Coming soon on IPL field: Ambani vs Mallya; SRK vs Preity

The wait is over. After days of speculation over the perspective bidders for the ownership of the teams in the BCCI’s mega venture the Indian Premier League, the results were finally out on Thursday.

The ownership for the Mumbai team has been handed over to the Reliance Group chairman Mukesh Ambani, while the maverick tycoon Vijay Mallya who also has a presence in the Formula One circuit, gets the ownership of the Bangalore team.

Bollywood too makes its presence felt in the IPL in a big way. The reigning superstar of the Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan’s company, Red Chillies Entertainment has been given the charge of the Kolkata team, to be christened as Shah Rukh XI, while actress Preity Zinta, along with her beau Ness Wadia, get the Mohali/Chandigarh team.

Publishing house Deccan Chronicle and GMR’s Saanchi Sports get the Hyderabad and the Delhi teams respectively. India Cements have bagged the Chennai team, while Emerging Media, a consortium of UK based investors get the Jaipur team.

The IPL council, headed by BCCI vice president Lalit Modi announced the above winning bids to the media.

The base price for the bids was USD 50 million.

Meanwhile, Indian stars Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly along with retired Australian cricketers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath are expected to attract the highest price tags among the 79 players who have been roped in by the IPL . The Twenty20 tournament scheduled to commence from April 18 will be played out at different centres in the country.

The players` bids are to be held next month and a top BCCI source said that even non- contracted (to BCCI) Indian players have been guaranteed a minimum of USD 15,000 by the IPL.

Players already roped in by IPL:

India (29): Ajit Agarkar, S Badrinath, Piyush Chawla, M S Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sourav Ganguly, Wasim Jaffer, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Ramesh Powar, Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar and Robin Uthappa.

Australia (16): Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Brett Lee, Matthew Hayden, Nathan Bracken, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Jason Gillespie and Cameron White.

Pakistan (6): Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Yousuf, Shoaib Akthar, Younis Khan, Mohammed Asif and Shahid Afridi.

Sri Lanka (9): Mahela Jayawardene, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Zoysa, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakara, Farveez Maharoof and Dilhara Fernando.

South Africa (9): Graeme Smith, Ashwell Prince, Herschelle Gibbs, Albie Morkel, Ab de Villiers, Shaun Pollock, Loots Bosman, Jacqes Kallis and Makhaya Ntini.

New Zealand (5): Stephen Fleming, Brendan McCullum, Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris.

West Indies (3): Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle.