These already troubled times for Indian cricket have just got worse, with the Sahara Group announcing on Saturday that it is ending its decade-long sponsorship of the India team .Sahara Group has pulled out of its sponsorship deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Pune franchise of the Indian Premier League .Citing instances where it has been denied "natural justice" in IPL, Sahara said in a statement: "We really feel such one-sided emotional relationship cannot be dragged (out) any further. We are withdrawing from all cricket under BCCI.However, Sahara don't want to give any problem to the BCCI and they also feel that the players should not suffer. BCCI will definitely take 2-4 months to get a new sponsor and Sahara will continue paying the sponsorship money until then.
Yuvraj Singh is suffring from cancer and is undergoing
chemotherapy in the U.S. The Sahara Pune warriors has requested
BCCI to consider Yuvraj's illness and allowed them to include
Yuvraj's price of ($ 1.8 million ) into there auction purse ($ 1.6 million) for the february 4 auction but BCCI rejected the
request. Apparently discounts were made in the last champions
league for Mumbai Indians,who were hit by several withdrawals due to injury and allowed to field five foreign players instead of
four.Sahara felt that this one sided emotional relationship can't
be dragged any further and withdrew their sponsorship from all cricket under BCCI.
Financially, this is the latest in a series of blows to Cricket India, which has suffered in the recent downturn, with Airtel pulling out as title sponsors of last year's Champions League Twenty20 tournament and the Board fighting a legal battle to encash a giant, Rs 10-billion bank guarantee after terminating its TV rights contract with Nimbus Communications.
