Indian Premier League has got the imagination of every cricket fan across the world. CNN-IBN spoke to the owners of King’s XI Punjab, better known as the Mohali IPL
Meha Bhardwaj: Are you happy you’ve got just about everybody you wanted on the team, be it Sreesanth, Brett Lee…
Preity Zinta: Irfan Pathan, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Piyush Chawla...yes you’re right. We’ve got everybody we wanted. Thank God we already had Yuvi on the team.
Meha Bhardwaj: I know commercial interest is fine but…
Preity Zinta: I’m purely in for the game. I’ve been a sportsperson all my life and I think it’s time for some action now.
Meha Bhardwaj: And how much is Ness influencing you in this?
Preity Zinta: I think we have all influenced each other. I’m really lucky to be supported by such wonderful friends and partners. It’s a long journey.
Meha Bhardwaj: I want to take you guys back to the auction days. So much was happening. There was this whole talk about the kind of money that was going to be involved, the kind of money we’ve never heard of and suddenly you have players being sold off. As an Indian viewer, people were glued to television channels because they had never seen anything like this. So when you were sitting inside, what was going on inside – like putting in one crore…
Preity Zinta: This department was with Ness and Tom. I think they did a fantastic job and thanks to them and our coach we have the best team.
Ness Wadia: There was a lot of planning like any business meeting or pitch. So we went through it (our strategy) two-three times and also on the phone during lunch time. I think we had strategies in place. Most important thing was that we were not interested in pushing other people’s prices up. We were really interested in getting the players we wanted to get. We were so focussed on what we were doing, frankly speaking, the rest didn’t really matter. Of course, there’s luck as well.
Meha Bhardwaj: Were you also involved in the technical bit like — we are going to have three all-rounders, etc?
Preity Zinta: Of course, that’s team strategy.
Meha Bhardwaj: Were you a part of it as well Preity?
Preity Zinta: Honestly, on the table two nights before, it was all going above my head. So I sat back when it came to things I didn’t know about.
Meha Bhardwaj: How did the Brett Lee and Sreesanth happen? Did you go for Sreesanth because of the character he brings to the game?
Preity Zinta: No we have a fast wicket and on fast wicket we need fast bowlers. Of course, the strategy was put together by Tom and Ness. And there was budget to be considered too.
Ness Wadia: I think Sreesanth is one of the better players today in the Indian team. He’s been through that first high and now he’s sort of coming off, not into a low but in sort of a lull like most sportsmen do where they start thinking where am I, what’s happened etc. I’m pretty sure he is going to bounce back, and as far as the selection strategy was: everyone had 10 players and there was a number to be pulled out and whichever number came out, that was the number for bidding. So when we were looking at spinners, we were short of spinners and we had no spinners left. We had Ramesh Powar and Piyush Chawla, so we just wanted to safeguard ourselves and we took a lot of decisions which were risking our model as opposed to just going and buying for the sake of buying.
Meha Bhardwaj: Preity, are you going to be involved in just about everything when it comes to IPL. I’m not saying movie are going to take a backseat, but for the moment, before the launch and before the tournament begins, is Preity Zinta’s life about King’s XI for the moment?
Preity Zinta: Absolutely. King’s XI Punjab, is a team of Punjab and there cannot be a chance we don’t mention Punjab. It’s not a country playing another country. It’s a state playing another state. In Bombay, people have already started calling me K11P, as they do it in the film industry. But yes, I’m treating IPL like a film. I’m dedicating three months of my life to it till the tournament gets over and then I will go back to films. I have four films releasing this year. So it is a very exciting year for me in terms of film as well as cricket. Hopefully, we will win the tournament.
Meha Bhardwaj: Are you worried that the timing of these games are going to be in the evenings when people will be flocking to the stadiums instead of watching your films?
Preity Zinta: I’m going to tell all my producers to not release any movie between 19 April and 30 May. It will be suicide.
Meha Bhardwaj: Your very good friend Shah Rukh Khan owns another team Knight Riders. Now when you have conversations with Shah Rukh do you say — Oh you know what? We’re going to beat you hollow because we have Brett Lee. Do you have any of these friendly banters?
Preity Zinta: The only friendly banter we have is Kolkata and Mohali are coming to finals.
Meha Bhardwaj: Ness, any regrets about any players you wanted but could not get — like Dhoni went for a huge sum of six crore?
Ness Wadia: Our focus was not to have too many international players. We focussed on Indians who could play.
Meha Bhardwaj: Did you think during the auction that it was nicer to get these Indian players because at the end of the day people here welcome them in stadiums?
Preity Zinta: We are Indians. I mean, come on, you put me in a stadium and tell me are you going to cheer for Pathan or for Yuvi as opposed to Gilchrist? No offence, they are lovely cricketers. It is like when you go to an ozzie crowd and have Indians play there with them. They will first cheer for their home heroes and then they will cheer for the other guys.
Meha Bhardwaj: But you’ve got international players. Are you are happy with them?
Ness Wadia: We are happy with international players and we also have a lot of young Indian players below the Sreesanths and Pathans and Yuvis of the world. I think we’ve got a good mix.
Meha Bhardwaj: On the parting note, for everybody who is watching this show, what about would you like to say about King’s XI Punjab? What’s the message you want to give to your viewers?
Ness Wadia: I think the first thing we’re going to cricket fans is a great cricket team. We’ve got a lot of entertainment. We’ve got the likes of Brett Lee and Sreesanth, Yuvraj and India’s greatest all-rounder Irfan Pathan. So I think you will see a very Indian team. You’ll also see a lot of youngsters coming in. We’ve got guys like Tanmay Srivastava and Ajitesh Argal. Then there’s a young emerging cricketer Yash Gandhi who’s scored 365 runs. So this is basically a team for the people of India. It is a team which has a lot more Indians than the rest. It is India’s pride.
Preity Zinta: For me, it’s live Punjabi, play Punjabi. So we’re in Punjab and the spirit of Punjab means always having a huge heart and being very hospitable, and being a little crazy and having lots of fun. It’s young, it’s dynamic, it’s fun and we’re going to go and win the cup!
