This is not cricket; IPL is gambling, says Thackeray

DIFFERENT BALL GAME: Thackeray warns Sharad Pawar against transforming cricket into a gambling game.

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Mumbai: Dubbing the auctioning of cricketers by the BCCI-promoted Indian Premier League as 'a gambling game of industrialists', Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray on Friday asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India President Sharad Pawar to stop it.

In an open letter to Pawar published on the front page of Friday's edition of Sena mouthpiece Samana, Thackarey said such open display of wealth does not augur well for the Indian cricket where players are being auctioned for money.

He said the whole thing has started only to checkmate Indian Cricket League, the rebel league promoted by Subhash Chandra-led Essel Group.

The auction of over 60 players, including those from other Test playing countries, was held here on Wednesday.

"Oh Pawar, what is happening in the realm of cricket?" said the Sena chief, who is also the editor of the newspaper.

"These industrialists are throwing money in your cricket field as a result of which cricket is getting corrupt. Cricketers are being purchased as a result this their concentration will not be in the game and the sport will decline in this country," he warned.

"If this is how industrialists wield their money, then a day will come when there will be no need of government because it will be the industrialists who will call the shots and run the country," Thackeray said.

"Stop this gambling of industrialists and save cricket. You (Pawar) have the guts to do it, don't you?" the letter added.