Ex-board chief Manohar roped in to settle Sahara row

The BCCI-Sahara soap opera continues to take fresh twists and turns. Now former board president Shashank Manohar has joined the negotiations a day after the Working Committee pointed to the rulebook over most demands made by the IPL (Indian Premier League) franchisee. Manohar, a reputed lawyer and the man who was seen as responsible for the change in the bid document for the two new franchisees that allowed Sahara to bag the Pune franchise, was in Mumbai on Tuesday and met with the BCCI officials at their headquarters.

On the agenda

Though the official line was that the former boss was in town to discuss various legal issues regarding cases the Board has been involved in, sources said Manohar also had a closed door meeting with Sahara officials.

Later Manohar told reporters outside the BCCI headquarters, There should be a solution. BCCI will make some concessions, they (Sahara) will make some concessions.

While behind the scenes parleys continued through the day, Sahara Group's official take on the entire issue was that it was awaiting a formal communication from BCCI before making their stand clear.

However, both parties are in a fix because Sahara has not yet officially communicated their desire to withdraw from the IPL. Hence the Board has desisted from making any official communication on this.

However, the BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagadale said: In case the Pune Warriors opt out of IPL, the IPL Governing Council will take a call on the issue.

Sources confirmed that Srinivasan conveyed the decisions of the Working Committee to Sahara boss Subrata Roy immediately over phone on Monday.

Nothing concrete

On February 4, Sahara had threatened to pull out of the IPL and withdraw its sponsorship to the national team over being denied natural justice.

However, in the next few days, BCCI tried to reach out and president N Srinivasan and other other officials met Subrata Roy in Mumbai on Sunday.

The BCCI working committee rejected Sahara's demand to allow an extra foreigner in the playing XI to compensate for the absence of Yuvraj Singh. It also did not give Sahara any concrete assurance over the other points raised by them.