The Cricket Board today rubbished a media report claiming Sachin Tendulkar
spurned captaincy protesting BCCI allegedly paying more money to foreign
players who are being roped in for the Indian Premier League (IPCL).
A vernacular channel claimed that Tendulkar was miffed with the BCCI, as was Rahul
Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, for allegedly offering more money to foreigners,
while the Indian players were offered less.
BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, however, dismissed the
claims, which he described as "malicious and absolutely false".
"The story is aimed at embarrassing our senior cricketers
and in fact, Sachin Tendulkar called me up to issue a clarification to the effect
that he has not spoken to any journalist on the issue and his name is being
tarnished," Shah said in a statement.
Shah asserted the senior players had offered full support for
the Board-backed Twenty20 league.
"Our President, Sharad Pawar met the team in England and
briefed them about IPL and later Lalit Modi also met the players and explained
to them the format and it was then that the top four players were invited to
the launch and all of them came and supported BCCI's initiative to start the
IPL which will benefit Indian cricketers at large," he said.
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