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Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 13 (PTI) Kerala Cricket Association today backed Shashi Tharoor in his public spat with Lalit Modi over Kochi franchise with its president TC Mathew saying if it was not for the minister the state would not have dreamt of owning an IPL team. Tharoor found himself in a controversy after IPL Commissioner Modi publicly disclosed the names of some of the owners of a consortium that recently bought the Kochi franchise for a whopping USD 333.33 million.
Rendezvous Sports World private limited, the company that led the consortium, received 25 per cent free equity. But out of this free equity, 19 per cent is said to have gone to Sunanda Pushkar, a Kashmiri beautician closely linked to Tharoor who is reportedly planning to marry her after divorcing his second wife, a Canadian.
But Mathew said the KCA was strongly behind Tharoor in his hour of crisis. "He (Tharoor) is the man who certainly brought IPL to the state.
He is certainly the mentor. He only co-ordinated the franchise.
So we have to stand with him," Mathew told NDTV. "We have to support him because Kerala actually cannot dreamt of such an IPL team," he said. A state player said that with Kerala owning an IPL team, many homegrown cricketers will now get the life-time opportunity to rub shoulders with the bigwigs of international cricket.
"It (IPL) is as good as playing international cricket because we will be playing alongside the likes of (Sachin) Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist, Herschelle Gibbs etc. who all have made name for themselves," the player said.
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