IPL 2018 : What happens to Kochi Tuskers Kerala team? Will they play IPL ever again?

Kochi Tuskers Kerala players celebrating Shreesant wicket

NO, Kochi Tuskers Kerala will not play IPL 2018 and also never play IPL ever. All from start to the end of drama is summarized in following questions.

1. What are Kochi Tuskers Kerala and their only one season survival?

​It's IPL team formed in 2010, played first and the only season in 2011 with a low performance by ending up 8th in point table. In 2010 BCCI held auction for adding two new teams for expanding ​the initial eight franchises for the Indian Premier League. There were 12 cities involved in the auction that was Pune, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Cuttack, Vadodara, Indore, and Gwalior. Pune was bought by Sahara Adventure Sports Group for $370m (₹1702 Crore) and Kochi went to Rendezvous Sports World Limited for $333m(₹1550 Crore) at a Chennai auction.

From start, the franchise has been surrounded by controversies about its ownership distribution in shares of the team. The team was almost scrapped out of IPL, but later BCCI reconsiders new ownership pattern presented by Kochi consortium. IPL governing council confirmed that the Kochi the franchise had satisfactorily responded to the notice issued to them by the BCCI and will be allowed to play in upcoming IPL season 4. Then team name drama from "Indi Commandos Kerala" to "Kochi Tuskers Kerala", the first name had to face horrible fans backlash from worldwide. The situation got worse when team management decides to drop Kerala from the team name. Final name was decided by the online poll on the major social networking platform. Home ground controversy begins for the team when they decide to shift its base to Gujarat’s Ahmedabad over Kerala because of entertainment tax in the state was 36%. Later Corporation of Cochin decided to renounce a 50% of the entertainment tax which becomes is 18% per game, the team management decides to stay in Kerala. No IPL team have suffered such circumstances before playing their first season. Anyhow Kochi climbs all hurdles and played it first IPL season.

Official BCCI logo

​2. What was the problem?

Board of Control for Cricket in India had discontinued the contract of the Kerala team for a violation of contractual terms by non-payment of bank guarantee of ₹156 crore. Under the terms of the agreement, each franchise has to submit 10% of numeration as a bank guarantee every year that covers the fee payable to the BCCI. The 2010-founded team was bought for Rs ₹1550 crore and the consortium has to pay a bank guarantee of ₹156 crore every year for the next one decade. But due to the conflict between owners, the amount payable to BCCI was put on halt, which leads to termination of team franchise.

As previous eight teams have limited members partnership for ownership of franchise because auction base price was less at that time starting from $60 million. But for later auction in a motive to increase franchise numbers in IPL base price was hiked to $225 million in 2010 (Even most expensive franchise Mumbai was sold at $111.9 million to Reliance Industries subsidiary IndiaWin Sports in the first auction). Which is not a smaller amount, so bigger numbers of people had to come together to afford such absurd price tag. More people causes more dispute between partnerships, which everybody witness in Kochi Tuskers Kerala team owners.

3. What solution they found?

​In July 2015, A court-appointed arbitrator lahoti has asked the BCCI to pay Kochi Tuskers Kerala remuneration of approximately Rs 550 crore ($87 million approximately) for terminating the franchise agreement in September 2011. While the IPL governing council is considering an appeal against the order, the owners of the Kochi franchise are hoping to allowed joining IPL from next season instead of cash compensation.

​After that two year past, BCCI neither paid the compensation nor bring the Kerela franchise back. BCCI official said that there is no point in going against the arbitration decision at supreme court. So, they are ready to pay compensation to KTK franchise and terminate the contract, which may cost them ₹850 Crore. 

BCCI also blamed that Shashank Manohar was one who decided to break off with Kerala franchise going against the will of other official members of the board. Now that gonna cost them huge in money account. When Kerala franchise appealed in court they demanded ₹300 Crore but BCCI keeps showing haughtiness in response and now demand reached to ₹850 Crore. Officials are in negotiation with KTK owners to bring down compensation price to ₹600 Crore. A deal will be finalized soon.

Author's take

​As IPL completed 10 years last year, it experienced betting scams, match-fixing scandals, low viewers ratings, players ill fights, money issues to bad politics in governing boards. Mistakes were inevitable because it was a younger age of leagues in India and IPL was the first kind tournament with such grand investment. Hope everything will get wiser with time. 

​