20 March,2010 06:36 AM IST | | Sanjjeev K Samyal
THE Indian Premier League is the talking point of the country. Yesterday's Mumbai Cricket Association Annual General Meeting was dominated by controversy concerning the T20 league.
MCA's boycott of the IPL has been called off, but interestingly there will be no MCA official present for today's Mumbai Indians-Royal Challengers Bangalore game at the Brabourne Stadium.
The MCA has been at loggerheads with the lucrative T20 league this season and have boycotted the three matches played in Mumbai so far after they were not given tickets for any of the matches.
No tickets
Usually, a state association gets a certain amount of tickets for matches played in their stadium. The most important thing to come out of the AGM, attended by MCA president Sharad Pawar and vice-president Vilasrao Deshmukh, was that the matter had been settled with the IPL.
Pawar assured that he had taken up the matter with the IPL and the Board of Control for Cricket in India bosses and they have agreed to release 5,000 tickets to MCA for the third place and final matches to be held at the DY Patil Stadium. "We have also received a letter from the IPL assuring us that from next IPL, care will be taken to look after the interests of the home associations," MCA Jt Hon Sec Lalchand Rajput told MiD DAY.
However, it is unlikely that there will be anyone from MCA in attendance for today's Mumbai Indians' IPL game at the Brabourne Stadium. "We don't have tickets. So how can we go?" said Rajput.
The other major talking point of the meeting was the escalating cost of the renovation of the Wankhede Stadium. The expenditure on the reconstruction of the stadium has almost doubled since the earlier estimated figure of Rs 140 to 175 crores. "We will have to take a loan of Rs 150 crore," said Rajput.
The IPL angle came up again in MCA's repayment plans. "We will have 58 corporate boxes. Even if we sell 40 of them, we can make Rs 80 crore and we will get Rs 50 crore as grant from the BCCI for infrastructure development," said Rajput.
However, MiD DAY has learnt that IPL has offered to buy 40 corporate boxes from the MCA for a period of 10 years for an upfront payment of Rs 100 crore.
