I P Hell

Wed, May 14 12:45 AM

Cricket's much vaunted tie-up with Bollywood and big business has run into trouble. The latest controversies include rumours that Shah Rukh Khan is poised to sell his Kolkata team; that Vijay Mallya -having fired his Bangalore team CEO - is now taking on captain Rahul Dravid and that Preity Zinty is pulling back on her involvement with the team.

Latest news is that the poor showing of his Kolkata team may force SRK to auction the team to recover his Rs 399 crore investment. AOL has quoted sources revealing the superstar is in negotiations with Bharti's Sunil Mittal, who may be interested in buying.

Says an Airtel insider, "Khan, as ambassador of Airtel, shares an understanding with Mittal. The two had discussed a partnership at the time of bidding itself.

Though Khan's team has not performed very well, Mittal's interest is still alive in the IPL venture." SRK told HT City: "It belongs to them (the players), not even me and #8230; Everybody is jumping about the financials, etc.

I think everyone is jumping the guns about all this." Kolkata team manager Joy Bhattacharya, dismissed the rumour as "bizarre": "If anything of the sort is happening then I am not aware.

" Preity Zinta, the co-owner of Mohali team, also seems to have eased her involvement with her team. She was not available for comment but a team insider said: "Earlier she would spend a lot of time with the boys, now she has scaled the interaction down to a post-game dinner.

" Hardest hit by IPL drama is Mallya's Bangalore team which featured an expensive line-up - Sharma, coach Venkatesh Prasad and captain Rahul Dravid. The liquor baron is unimpressed with their performance.

"I had my own list (of players) but the fact is Rahul Dravid and Charu Sharma had their own list and at the end of the day, I decided to take the back seat." Said Charu Sharma: "I was shown the door by the authorities".

Mallya has now turned on Dravid. "Unfortunately in cricket the captain takes all the decisions," he said.

Sharma's dismissal is not the first. A day earlier, Rajasthan team media manager Anant Vyas was fired for mishandling the Shane Warne-Sourav Ganguly spat.

There appears to be trouble in Mumbai as well with skipper Sachin Tendulkar finding it necessary to state that there was no pressure from the Reliance Group. "No, there is no perform-or-perish pressure from Mukesh Ambani," he told reporters, after rumours that Ambani was concerned about the team's performance.

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