Bollywood star Salman Khan was pretty confident that he would return as a team owner when he went to Chennai to bid for a new IPL team on Sunday. However it wasn't meant to be. Salman was so confident of winning the bid that he had even planned a celebratory party on Sunday night for which he'd called people over, says a media report.
In fact Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor also bid for the Pune team, but Sahara Adventure Sports snapped up the city as the highest bidder with $370 million (Rs 1,702 crore). Kerala-based group Rendezvous Sports bid $333.33 million (Rs 1,333.33 crore) to get Kochi as the other franchisee to make the IPL a 10-team affair from 2011.
The most interesting part was presence of Katrina Kaif as she was not bidding with Salman.
She was representing the Adani Group from Ahmedabad which was bidding for Pune.
Sources close to Salman are surprised that his bid didn't make the cut, "Salman is very upset and is trying to figure out what happened overnight when he lost the winning bid. He had flown into Chennai in a private aircraft. He was very confident till Saturday night about winning the bid. And is wondering if there was foul play by vested interests. Namely to do with star who owns a team."
Katrina Kaif was there in the bidding process at Chennai, though she arrived separately without Salman.
"I wasn't bidding with Salman. I accompanied Reshma who is my close friend. Reshma (from Matrix) and I had gone to represent Matrix who put in a bid with the Adani Group. I was not bidding at all. Salman had put in a separate bid." Katrina added.
