IPL meeting to decide Ganguly's fate

The Indian Premier League Governing Council will take a decision on the three unsold Indian players, including former captain Sourav Ganguly, at its meeting in Mumbai, on Friday.

No franchise showed interest in buying Ganguly at his base price of US$ 400,000 during the IPL Players' auction on January 8 and 9. Former players Wasim Jaffer and V R V Singh also went unsold.

The IPL, in a letter to all the teams, had said a request has been received from franchises that subject to them having sufficient balance on the salary cap to pay at least the reserve price of the relevant player, they should have the opportunity to sign unsold Indian players from the auction.

IPL's Chief Operating Officer Sundar Raman further said "the auction regulations were clear that players not taken in the auction could only play in IPL 2011 as replacement players."

"Before the Governing Council deliberates on this issue, I wanted to get your view on this issue and if your franchise is agreeable to : permit franchise to buy any unsold Indian players from the auction; The player can be bought only at his reserve price".

Raman had asked the franchisees should send their views by Thursday failing which it would be considered that they were not opposed to the request.

It is not known whether the letter from Mumbai Indians that criticised the way the IPL Players' Auction was held in the first week of last month would be taken up at the meeting.

In a letter written to the IPL, Indiawin Sports, which owns Mumbai Indians, had alleged that players were auctioned through a pre-decided order of auction list, in contrast to the earlier plan that they would be arranged into sets and the order by which they would be put under the hammer would be drawn randomly.

Mumbai's letter also said that this change was intimated to the franchises just a day before the auction.