The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : KPL franchises get official sanction

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KPL franchises get official sanction

Principal Correspondent

Bangalore: After Wednesday’s euphoria of winning the eight zonal teams, the Karnataka Premier League’s (KPL) successful franchises got official sanction to display their rights as the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) in a delayed function-cum-media conference, distributed the ownership document to the winners here on Thursday night.

The highest bidder — Brigade Enterprises — which coughed up Rs. 7.2 crore to win the Bangalore Urban team, was the first to get the ownership document followed by the other team owners.

“The KSCA will be always there to support the team owners and please feel free to contact us anytime for any help,” said the KSCA President Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadeyar, while secretary Brijesh Patel added: “Team owners have to scout for players and coaches. They have to work on their players’ clothing, colour, team logo, theme song and may be have brand ambassadors from the movies like we had in the Indian Premier League. The KSCA will help you in the promotional activities and we also thank the media for the support. There have been a few controversies but as the president here says, it adds to the charm.”

Later Frontiers Group official Charu Sharma, who is part of the team that conceptualised KPL, invoked a pledge among the owners that all the matches will be played “within the spirit of the game and that there won’t be any cause for rumour about the nature of the matches played.”

The evening concluded with officials from Siresh Auto, winner of the Mysore team, promising that they would sponsor a Mahindra brand vehicle for the ‘Player of the Tournament.’

According to official sources, the KPL T20 is likely to be held from September 9 to 23 instead of the earlier scheduled September 12 to 27.

Correction: In the report that appeared in these columns titled ‘KPL: Brigade Group gets Bangalore Urban team’ in the issue dated August 5, the name of the winning team owner from Mysore should be ‘Siresh Auto’ and not as mentioned.

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