Indi Commandos

Indi Commandos Kerala is an Indian Premier League team based in the city of Kochi, a major seaport located on the south-west coast of India by the Arabian Sea, in Ernakulam district of the state of Kerala. The team was one of two new franchisees added to the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2011 season, alongside the Sahara Pune Warriors. The team franchise is owned by Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd., which is a consortium of multiple companies.

Winning the auction

The auction for expanding the initial eight franchises for the IPL was held on March 22, 2010. The cities involved in the auction were Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Vizag, Rajkot, Cuttack, Vadodara, Kochi, Indore and Gwalior. Two new teams were selected out of 12 teams, which bid for 2011 IPL matches. Sahara Group made the highest bid in the auction and chose to base its team in Pune, at the cost of 1,702 crore. Rendezvous Sports World made the second highest bid of 1533.32 crores, and elected to base its team in Kochi.[1] The two new franchises were sold for a combined sum of money, which was greater than the combined purchase price of all the original eight IPL franchises.[2]
With the Kochi team and Pune team joining the list of IPL franchises, all four southern states in India have an IPL franchise, while Maharashtra has two IPL franchises.
[edit]Initial franchise issues (2010)

The franchise has been at the center of many controversies since its inception. BCCI had given the franchise ultimatum to dissolve factionalism and infighting or face scrapping. After a series of lengthy meetings the company sent a letter to the BCCI requesting more time stating that the negotiations were in an advanced stage and they needed some more time to be sorted.[3]
The BCCI announced that on 27 October it would decide the fate of the Indi Commandos Kerala and the BCCI insisted that the two cases of the Indi Commandos Kerala and Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals which were expelled are different. [4] The IPL Governing council decided to give them a 30-day termination notice which meant that the franchise would have to reply to the notice within 30 days and if the IPL accepted their agreement then the franchise would no longer face the prospect of being terminated [5] The Kochi promoters submitted a letter to the BCCI officials with regard to the revised structure of agreement hammered out between them. The BCCI governing council meeting was held on 28 Nov 2010 at Nagpur to decide the fate of Kochi franchisee. BCCI president Shashank Manohar said the board needed more time to discuss the issue and to take legal opinion and that the final decision on Indi Commandos Kerala will be taken on the BCCI governing council meeting at Mumbai on December 05, 2010. [6] After much speculation it was finally announced by the BCCI that it was satisfied with the agreements signed by the franchise owners and the team would participate in the 2011 IPL Season. [7]
[edit]Ownership

The old shareholding pattern of Indi Commandos Kerala was-
Rendezvous Sports World (26%)
Parinee Developers (26%)
Anchor Earth (27%)
Film Waves (12%)
Anand Shyam (8%)
Vivek Venugopal (1%)
Of the 26% held by Rendezvous Sports World in whose name the title rights were vested , the Gaekwads would only get (10%) free plus (1%) paid , Sunanda Pushkar (5%) and another (10%) was reserved for the brand ambassador for the team.
The new shareholding pattern of Indi Commandos Kerala is -
Anchor Earth (31.4%)
Parinee Developers (30.6%)
Film Waves Combine (13.5%)
Anand Shyam (9.5%)
Vivek Venugopal (5%)
Rendezvous Sports World (10%)
[edit]Venue



Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi, which will host the home matches of Indi Commandos
The Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) have started planning a new world class international stadium at Edakochi, an area which lies in west Kochi. The capacity of stadium is said to be 60,000. Kochi currently has Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium which has hosted several ODI's. The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kochi is not under KCA. Hence KCA has entered into an agreement to take the stadium on lease and modify the entire ground to equip it for IPL matches. Kochi will host its home matches at Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, until the new stadium exclusively by KCA is ready by 2012.[8]
[edit]Player Auction and Squad (2011)

Kochi bought 17 players from the IPL 2011 Auction by signing five specialist batsman those being Mahela Jayawardene, VVS Laxman, Brad Hodge, Owais Shah and Michael Klinger. The team signed six bowlers, the most notable being Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan others included Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ramesh Powar, Vinay Kumar and Stephen O'Keefe. Four all-rounders were signed those being Ravindra Jadeja, Steven Smith, Thisara Perera and John Hastings. Two renowned Wicket-Keeper batsmen were signed up with Brendon McCullum who is the leading run scorer in Twenty20 Internationals and Parthiv Patel.
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