IPL Governing Council defers decision on MCA protest

The IPL Governing Council has deferred its decision over the protest letter it received from the Mumbai Cricket Association against shifting of the cash-rich league's final from Wankhede to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

"No decision was taken today," interim BCCI-IPL president Sunil Gavaskar told waiting reporters at the BCCI's headquarters in Mumbai.

He, however, did not reveal when the Governing Council will decide and put an end to the impasse.

Stung by the Governing Council's decision to shift the final without assigning any specific reason, MCA president Sharad Pawar had shot off a protest letter to the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The letter to the IPL Governing Council and all BCCI members demanded the real reason for shifting the T20 extravaganza's grand finale to Bangalore from its original venue.

"Considering that 20 matches of the ongoing Pepsi IPL season were played overseas, the GC took a decision to try and take the play-offs to as many stadias as possible. Several venues had expressed their interest in hosting the play-offs," BCCI had said when announcing the revised knock-out schedule.

The MCA had convened an emergency managing committee meeting on Monday and told reporters that the IPL Governing Council’s decision would be communicated to them on Tuesday.

"We had a managing committee meeting today and the members were apprised of the media release put out by the BCCI about the shifting of the final to Bangalore. Meanwhile, we are also in communication with BCCI and the Governing Council of IPL on the issue," Ravi Savant, vice-president of MCA, who chaired Tuesday’s managing committee meeting, had said on Monday.

"Mr Sunil Gavaskar (interim president of BCCI on IPL matters) has told us that they will discuss the letter and come back to us with their ruling tomorrow. We are hopeful it will be in favour of MCA," he added.

In protest against the BCCI move, officials of the MCA handed over their IPL accreditations to the tournament organisers.

"We have handed over all our IPL accreditations. The office-bearers of MCA, managing committee members and the volunteers connected with the tournament have done so as we are not happy that the final has been taken away without assigning proper reason," MCA treasurer Vinod Deshpande said on Sunday.

However, other MCA sources told PTI on Tuesday that the accreditations were surrendered to the association officials only and a final call would be taken on the issue once the IPL GC replies to the protest letter.

On Saturday, the IPL's GC got involved in a tele-conference and decided to allot the final to the Karnataka Cricket Association.

The May 30 Qualifier 2, however, is scheduled as per original fixture at the Wankhede Stadium, which has already hosted three home games of Mumbai Indians and is set to host two more on May 23 and 25.

The May 28 eliminator has been allotted to the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium.