New IPL draft de-hyphenates MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina

The condition threw up an ambiguity. Do the new franchises bleed more money because of this, or will it act as a level-playing field when you consider all the players? The board insisted that it will be a leveler in the big picture. Meanwhile, in the press conference room, the murmurs grew into barks. ‘What’s that amount?’ ‘Your board has promised transparency, so why secret about this? How much was he paid?’

Shukla isn’t the kind of man who gets easily flustered. He has seen far worse cacophony inside Parliament. And so, he just sat there with a blissful smile. Enter Professor Ratnakar Shetty, game development manager of BCCI, and he whispered something to Shukla. The two franchise representatives — the owner Kesav Bansal of Rajkot team, and Subroto Talukdar from Pune team — tried to keep a straight face. Then Shukla cleared his throat. “All financial details will be put up on the website,” a theme that was repeated a few times as media tried to go hammer and thongs at the same topic.

The rest of the conference, alas, didn’t throw up much entertainment. Except, perhaps, the mention about Sourav Ganguly. Asked whether they employed any cricketing brains in coming up with the shortlist of players for this draft, Pune team representative Talukdar said that they had sought the help of cricketers such as Manoj Tiwary, Ashok Dinda and Wriddhiman Saha, who work for Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, an organisation owned by Sanjeev Goenka.

Shukla interjected with a smile: “There is no conflict of interest in that!”

Then came the follow-up question. Was Sourav Ganguly also involved in this? Ganguly is a co-owner of the ISL franchise Atletico de Kolkata, a football team owned by Goenka. And Talukdar was quick with the answer: “No!”

Chennai 7, RR 3

As it turned out seven Chennai Super Kings players were picked in the draft and three from Rajasthan Royals. The rules of the Player Draft, conducted by Harsha Bhogle, were simple. Each franchise could pick five players each, one by one, from the two squads owned by CSK and RR. Pune got the first pick as they had submitted the lowest bid in response to the invitation tender to own the teams. They chose MS Dhoni.

The second pick, Rajkot’s first choice, was interesting. They went for Suresh Raina. It was, by itself, an unsurprising choice, but the thing is this: Did they think of Ravindra Jadeja, the local boy from Rajkot, as possible captaincy material? Would that help in brand loyalty down there? As things turned out, they bagged Jadeja as Pune went for Ajinkya Rahane next.

Later, Bansal explained his choices. “Raina was obviously our first choice and we had no doubts in our mind about that. If we look at Raina, he has been one of the finest players in shortest format and has a phenomenal record in the IPL. Also, from the company’s (Intex) perspective and as a overall brand with his leadership qualities, he was the first choice,” Bansal said. This is what he said about Jadeja: “We never had any doubts about Jadeja being our preferred choice. Obviously, the local (Rajkot) connect was a factor, but we needed a big hitter lower down the order. Jadeja, we believe is a better T20 batsman.”

The media weren’t allowed inside the draft room but its learnt that Bhogle asked Bansal whether Raina was chosen for his leadership skills, and that Bansal answered in the affirmative. Later on though, Bansal didn’t reveal his captain but said it will be decided in a few days’ time. Now that they have both Jadeja and Raina, it will be interesting to see if they still plunge for Raina. Most likely it will be Raina, who tweeted his joy: “Excited to play for the beautiful vibrant city- Rajkot in @IPL. Looking forward to have new teammates and support from the people of Gujarat.”

A curious situation

A naughty interjection here. Back in July 2013, during an ODI in Trinidad, Jadeja and Raina had to be separated by their team-mates at the fall of the ninth West Indian wicket. Raina had dropped both Sunil Narine and Kemar Roach, who shared a frustrating 58-run stand, off Jadeja. And when the wicket fell, and players got together, Jadeja, according to an insider, had snapped at Raina: “Because you’ve lost the captaincy, you’ve also lost interest in fielding?”

They have obviously dusted that off and have gone to play together for India, but this will be the first time after that they will play in a team with one of them as captain.

The rest of the draft proceeded smoothly. Once Pune picked Ashwin, Rajkot went for Brendon McCullum. Pune then picked Steve Smith, after thinking for a while, and Rajkot went for James Faulkner. Pune’s fifth and final pick was Faf du Plessis, and after a slightly long break for internal discussion, Rajkot chose Dwayne Bravo.

With the core of the team obtained for Rs 39 cr each, and ` 27 cr left in their respective purses, the two new teams will head to the IPL player auction to fill up the remaining slots. Pune needs more seamers while Rajkot will need more top-order batsmen. The Intex Technologies Director Bansal said they are looking to nail the post for coach first before they can start strategising about the players.

“We have already had lengthy discussions with a couple of coaches,” Bansal said. “I will not divulge the details at this moment. But we are close to finalising our chief coach. Once the coach is finalised, then we will sit with him and chalk out the strategy for the auction. We wanted more all-rounders from the draft and that’s the reason we picked up both Bravo and James Faulkner. Also Brendon McCullum was there on our wish-list.”

Both teams said they will finalise their names and logos soon.