New Zealand wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum has said he nearly turned his back on his country to commit to an entire season of the IPL, before he changed his mind while on holiday in Fiji. McCullum made the revelations in his book Inside Twenty20, co-authored by journalist Dylan Cleaver, in which he talks about the impact of the lucrative Twenty20 tournament."I felt I had unfinished business from IPL II. The fact that the tournament did not pan out the way I envisaged had not sat well with me. I desperately wanted to turn it around," McCullum wrote. "I must admit I came bloody close to not signing with New Zealand Cricket. I took a plane to Fiji with my wife, Elissa, for a holiday and to think about what cricket meant to me.
"I had started to question how important cricket was to me ... This issue of signing, or not signing, my NZC contract brought it to a head. I needed to give something up to understand it and in the end what I did not want to give up was my full and utter commitment to New Zealand."
The divide between the BCCI and the IPL franchises got wider with the team owners demanding availability of all players for the fourth edition of the cash-rich league, saying after all it's a business. And, if the cricket board is worried about players' fitness, they should not have added two more teams for the next season.
Sharad Pawar and his daughter have denied allegations that his family was involved in bidding for a cricket team in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the last round of auctions held in March. (Read: No role, says Supriya Sule)
Lalit Modi will on Monday submit his reply to the second showcause notice issued to him by the BCCI which accuses the suspended IPL Commissioner of planning a rebel Twenty20 league in England.
