Jadeja violated team's core values - Rajasthan

Rajasthan Royals have said that they had reservations about playing allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, because he breached his contract, even if the IPL had not banned him for a year. Rajasthan's chief executive Sean Morris said Jadeja, who failed to renew his contract for 2010 and was found negotiating with Mumbai Indians, had ignored the franchise's core values and now had to pay for his mistake.

"To tell you exactly what our position was: While we believe we should fight for the young players, because we have invested in them, we still had to consider whether we would allow him [Jadeja] to be part of the Rajasthan Royals team," Morris said in Nagpur on the eve of Rajasthans's clash with Deccan Chargers. "We have got really strong values within Rajasthan Royals, lot of loyalty and integrity within the team and the squad, so as a team we still would have made a decision whether to allow him to play or not."

The IPL governing council had banned Jadeja for a season at the behest of BCCI president Shashank Manohar after details about him violating rules came out in the open. They allowed the player to appeal against the decision and also heard representations from the Rajasthan and Mumbai franchises. Arun Jaitley, a lawyer who is also part of the governing council, chaired the hearing, upheld the ban and released a strongly-worded verdict. "The player contrived a situation to his advantage by breaching the player trading rules and not signing his third year contract for IPL 2010 with the Rajasthan Royals," Jaitley said. Rajasthan had lodged the initial complaint and "further alleged that he was in communication with the Mumbai Indians team in violation of disciplinary rules."

In Shane Watson's absence, and injuries to Graeme Smith and Dmitri Mascarenhas, Rajasthan were struggling after the first few matches. Shane Warne, Rajasthan's captain, admitted Jadeja's all-round skills were being missed but they had to comply with the IPL's decision. According to Rajasthan the ban had "adversely affected the franchise even though they were not at fault". Morris said they did grow desperate when Smith and Mascarenhas were forced to return home. "It is one of the few hurdles that we faced with a few injuries at the beginning of the tournament all at once," he said. "But we got over it."

However, Morris said Rajasthan had forgotten the Jadeja episode and were happy to have been the bridge which allowed him to break into the Indian team. "We brought him on as a player hopefully for the benefit of Indian cricket. We firmly believe in investing in young Indian players. If you look at the overseas players that we have, they spend an awful lot of time working with young Indian players for our benefit, to make us a better team, but we also hope that leaves some form of legacy.

"My final point on Jadeja is it is over. Good luck to him for the World Cup (ICC World Twenty20). We hope that he is a big success for India." When asked if that meant Rajasthan would not bid for Jadeja during the player auction later this year, Morris denied that would be the case. "No, what I meant was about the Jadeja ban for this season," he said.