According to sources, billionaire Gautam Adani-owned Adani Enterprises has submitted its bid for a new Indian Premier League franchise.

Sources say the bid is not with a consortium. It is also learnt that top corporate houses like Sahara Group, Videocon Enterprises and ICICI are among other bidders, while the guardians of the laws of the game, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), is also in the running for the Pune franchise.

Presently there are eight team invloved in IPL but next year in fourth season of IPL, two more team will be included. The bids for new teams will be opened on Sunday, March 7, 1200 IST, after which the winners will be announced.

As per the IPL’s tender condition, the bidders should submit a Rs 460-crore bank guarantee to participate in the bidding process. The IPL has set a base price of US $ 225 million per franchise.

Adani and Videocon teams certain?

Earlier the only condition was that those who participate in the auction should have a security deposit of Rs 300 cr. But sudden introduction of the new clause that bidding parties should produce a bank guarantee of Rs 5,000 cr made some parties back out. This clause was a difficult one for the investors to meet and they withdrew from the auction on the last day to submit tender.

It is has become certain that one of the teams will be bought by the Adani Group that has the backing of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the other one by Videocon that is backed by Union Ministers Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel.

The Adani Group will have its base in Ahmedabad and the Videocon team will be based at Nagpur or Pune. According to reports the rules were changed to make it smooth for these two teams.