The BCCI and the Indian Premier League governing council have given a formal clearance to both the Lucknow and Ahmedabad franchises set to join the tournament from the 2022 season, confirmed league’s chairman Brijesh Patel on January 11.
While the green signal to the Lucknow side was very much on the cards, there was suspense until Tuesday on whether the Ahmedabad side will take part in the 2022 season.
The controversy was related to the CVC Capital firm that bought the Ahmedabad based IPL franchise for INR 5,600 crores from the board. It reportedly came to light that the European section of what is an investment firm was linked to certain betting companies outside India. With betting being illegal in the country here, it was believed that CVC could lose out on ownership rights.
But the matter was cleared when BCCI came to know that the firm has bought the team in IPL through its Asian funds, which don’t have any connection with the betting companies.
This pave the way for the clearance of the Ahmedabad franchise as well, ending a couple of months of speculations and controversy before the competition.
“BCCI has given formal clearance to Lucknow and Ahmedabad franchises of IPL,”
Patel told ANI.
The IPL governing council chairman also confirmed that the two new teams have been given another two weeks to finalise their draft signings before the mega auction.
Excitement is brewing amongst the fans to see which are the players that Lucknow and Ahmedabad finalise in the drafting procedure from a pool of cricketers that other franchises chose not to retain or they themselves parted ways with their previous teams.
Reports are that Ahmedabad are on the verge of announcing Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan and Rashid Khan as their draft picks, while Lucknow tries to get KL Rahul and David Warner, among others.
Once the drafting procedure is finished, all ten teams will enter the much-awaited mega auction, which – as Brijesh confirmed – will be held in Bengaluru on Febuary 12 and 13.
