BCCI chief wants to reconcile with Sahara

New Delhi: There appeared to be a climbdown yesterday by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) which talked of reconciliation rather than confrontation with its estranged chief sponsor Sahara India.

The board's devil-may-care tone was missing when Board president N. Srinivasan said the BCCI only has "perceptional differences" with Sahara India, Team India's sponsor for 11 years, and insisted all the problems would be sorted out through dialogue.

A source in Sahara said that the corporate is studying the board's conciliatory note and weighing its options before reacting officially.

Srinivasan said he was open to dialogue to sort out the issue with Sahara India, which Saturday announced it was ending its sponsorship deal with the BCCI for Team India and also pulled out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Pune Warriors.

"We only have perceptional differences and any dialogue is welcome. We have a long 11-year relationship with Sahara and I was surprised with their decision," Srinivasan said.

Negotiations

When pointed out that Sahara chairman Subrato Roy took the decision after talking to him, Srinivasan said: "We had a long conversation on Friday evening and he expressed that he was hurt. But we never expected them to take this decision."

Srinivasan was confident the issue will be sorted out when the two parties sit down. "When we sit down we can sort out all the problems," he said.

IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla also said that "back channel negotiations" are on with Sahara to sort out the issue amicably.

"We have not yet officially heard anything from Sahara on the pull-out, but the board is ready to discuss the corporate's grievances," Shukla said. "After all we have had a long and fruitful association."

An optimistic Shukla refused to treat the issue as closed and said: "Pune Warriors are still part of the IPL and their genuine grievances would be addressed to their satisfaction."

Shukla said the board would like to hear out Sahara first before taking any decision. In any case, decisions could not be taken on the spur of the moment. "They have been our partner for 11 long years and we cannot take any decision in haste. We are hopeful of finding a solution soon," he said.

Shukla, however, was clear no IPL rule would be bent to accommodate any team, let alone Sahara.