Kochi's fate to be decided in Wednesday IPL meeting

The IPL governing council will meet on Wednesday in Nagpur to decide the fate of the Kochi franchise. "The only point on the agenda is Kochi," one of the BCCI officials said on the content of the short notice sent to the five-member panel.

Last week the two warring factions in the Kochi consortium had, through their solicitors, submitted individual replies to the BCCI showcause notice (on October 12) asking them to register a company and settle their internal dispute. Though both the groups - Rendezvous Sports and rival group led by Anchor's Mehul Shah - tried hard to come to a settlement through numerous meetings, the exercise proved futile as neither group was willing to come down from its original demand. Still, reportedly, both asked for a 10-day extension from the board in a last-ditch attempt to save the franchise from getting terminated.

Shashank Manohar, BCCI president, said that his legal team was studying the replies closely and would come to a decision at some point this week. Manohar also clarified that the Kochi case was completely different to Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab, the two franchises terminated on October 10. "Kochi have not breached any agreement, our issues with them are different," Manohar said. He stressed that the the main problem with Kochi was the "huge differences" between the five-partner consortium which bid $333.33 million earlier this March to become the tenth franchise in the league.

Despite the Kochi dispute taking longer than intended to get resolved, Manohar was confident that it would have no impact on the player auctions.