Mumbai, Jan 22 (IANS) Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi and franchise owners Friday vehemently denied that any “conspiracy” to keep the Pakistani players out of the third edition of the Twenty20 league tournament.
Modi and the city-based team owners talked tough, saying they owe no explanation as to why they did not pick any Pakistani player at the auction Tuesday.
Conspiracy theories were afloat, accusing the Indian government of influencing franchisees to keep Pakistani players out of the IPL III, leading to a full-scale diplomatic war between the two countries.
“There is no conspiracy theory as is being reported in media. The media is biased at times,” Modi told reporters here.
“We don’t owe an explanation. We request people in Pakistan and India to respond with more maturity.”
Co-owner of Rajasthan Royals Shilpa Shetty concurred with Modi.
“I request people in India and Pakistan to act maturely. Things have been taken out of proportion.”
“It was not a contrived attempt. We lost out on the best players. We don’t owe any explanation anyway.”
“The reasons for dropping (Pakistanis) are understandable in the current scenario. We would like the media and the people to react to such situations more sensibly,” Shilpa said.
She also said that the franchisees couldn’t provide for the security of the Pakistani players and hence decided against bidding for them in the auction.
“We wanted the players to be in the country and at that point of time we were more worried about security. We did not want to take onus for their security,” she said.
Preity Zinta, co-owner of Kings XI Punjab team, said: “They have just sensationalised the issue. We request the country to collectively handle the situation sensibly.”
Modi and the representative of other franchisees were here to address a press conference after a tie-up between IPL and Network 18’s entertainment channel Colors for post-match coverage.
