Speculations over the fitness of India’s premier strike bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, came to an end today as details about his recent visit to the BCCI Center of Excellence (COE) in Bengaluru emerged. Despite initial fears of a fresh injury just days before Mumbai Indians’ IPL 2026 opener, it has been confirmed that the fast bowler’s presence at the facility is part of a carefully calibrated workload management programme.

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The visuals of Bumrah checking in at the COE instead of joining Mumbai Indians’ pre-season camp at the Wankhede Stadium had created a stir on social media. However, it has been clarified that this visit is a proactive measure rather than a reactive one.

According to ESPN Cricinfo, the BCCI medical team has prepared a specific strength and conditioning block for Bumrah in the COE. The primary objective is to ensure he remains at peak fitness for England’s high-risk white-ball tour of India in July, which includes five T20Is and three ODIs.

Importantly for Mumbai Indians fans, the 32-year-old has continued his bowling practice in Bengaluru and has not been sidelined with skill work. The report adds that he is expected to join the Hardik Pandya-led squad in the coming days, which will leave him firmly in line for Mumbai’s first home match against Kolkata Knight Riders on March 29.

The caution from the BCCI medical staff is due to Bumrah’s consistent schedule in the last quarter. He was the undisputed leader of India’s victorious 2026 T20 World Cup campaign earlier this month, where he finished as the joint-highest wicket-taker with 14 wickets. His Masterclass in the final against New Zealand in AhmedabadReturning figures of 4 for 15 remains the gold standard for T20 bowling, but such high-intensity variations require a period of scientific recovery.

Since returning from back surgery in 2025, the BCCI has taken Bumrah’s workload carefully, often removing him from non-essential duties to maintain his longevity. Their 2025-2026 schedule sees them handling a heavy workload in the home Test series against the West Indies and South Africa ahead of the month-long World Cup.

For Mumbai Indians, Bumrah is the tactical pivot around which their bowling unit revolves. Last season, despite the team’s inconsistent results, he remained a statistical anomaly, taking 18 wickets in 12 matches with an economy rate of 6.67.

With the 2026 IPL season following the high-scoring T20 World Cup in India, his ability to perform in the death overs on the batting-friendly Wankhede track is indispensable.

Bumrah’s arrival in the MI camp will provide a significant psychological boost to the team looking to regain its dominance. After being eliminated in the first playoff match last year, Mumbai Indians are looking to come out with a better performance.

Bumrah will join a good bowling unit, which also has the likes of Trent Boult, Deepak Chahar and Mitchell Santner among others.

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tune in

The five-match T20 series between New Zealand and South Africa is tied at 2-2. Both the teams have won two games each, making today’s final match decisive.

James Neesham: We will bowl first. Not too worried. It looks like a pretty even contest. There is some grass on the pitch, which will help the ball spin quickly, so that is a positive. It’s always good to be back at Hagley Oval. There is definitely more experience in the group playing here now. We have spent a lot of time at this venue, and it is always a great place for cricket. The crowd turns up in large numbers and creates a great atmosphere. The series is at stake tonight, it’s an important game and hopefully we can put in a good performance for them.

Keshav Maharaj: We were actually looking to bat first, taking some inspiration from the women’s game we have played in the past. It seemed like the better option, especially if the pitch remained the same as it was, so yes, batting first was probably the plan. Yes, it is definitely useful. You’ll have to pay a little attention to the overnight weather, but generally conditions don’t change much. This gives you a good reference point, especially from a bowling perspective around the right line and length to hit. And from a batting point of view, it helps you identify scoring areas, be it square of the wicket, through the off-side or straight down the ground.

New Zealand (Playing XI): Tim Robinson, Katy Clark, Dane Cleaver (wk), Nick Kelly, Bevon Jacobs, James Neesham (c), Josh Clarkson, Cole McConchie, Zachary Foulkes, Kyle Jamieson, Ben Sears.

South Africa (Playing XI): Wiaan Mulder, Tony De Zorzi, Connor Esterhuizen (wk), Rubin Harman, Jason Smith, Diane Forrester, George Linde, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj (c), Prenlan Subrayan, Otniel Bartman.

In January 2008, someone, or several people, made one of the most shrewd, questionable investments in the history of sports. For $67 million, he acquired the rights to a cricket franchise in Rajasthan, a desert state with neither a great cricketing tradition, no glamorous city center nor any obvious commercial appeal. It was the cheapest of the eight original IPL franchises. No one else wanted it at that price.

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After eighteen years, The same franchise was sold for 1.63 billion US dollars. This is a return of more than 2,300%. But the story of how this money was made and, more importantly, who it was made for and how the ownership was structured, is one of the most complex, scandal-filled, legally disputed stories in cricket history.

IPL 2026: Complete coverage

This is the complete story of Rajasthan Royals.

hazy beginning

In January 2008, the BCCI auctioned eight brand new IPL franchises to the highest bidder. Mumbai went for $111 million. Chennai received $91 million. Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Punjab captured the premium. The bidding rooms were buzzing with Bollywood money, industrial dynasties and a feeling that Indian cricket was becoming something else entirely.

And then there was Rajasthan.

The winning bid came in at $67 million, the market’s lowest level. The winning entity was Emerging Media, a subsidiary of UK-based technology group Blenheim Chalcot, led by British-Indian entrepreneur Manoj Badale.

maze in the desert

Right from the beginning, there was nothing clear about the ownership of Rajasthan Royals. The franchise agreement was not signed by Emerging Media.

The official franchise agreement with the BCCI was signed by Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Limited on 14 April, almost three months after the auction. This unit was incorporated after winning the auction.

At that precise moment, there were only two names listed in JICPL’s share register: Ranjit Barthakur and Fraser Castellino, each holding 5,000 shares. Immediately after signing, the shares jumped: Castellino transferred his shares by October 2008, Barthakur by January 2009. The real power resided in EM Sporting Holdings Limited, a Mauritius-based vehicle designed for opacity.

This is where the plot turned into a maze. EM Sporting had several partners. Tresco International Limited, controlled by Lalit Modi’s brother-in-law Suresh Chellaram, held 44.2% stake, making it the largest shareholder. Badale’s stake in Emerging Media IPL Limited was 32.4%. Blue Water Estates, linked to Lachlan Murdoch (son of media mogul Rupert), took 11.7%. Complementing this, Cookie Investments linked to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra was also at 11.7%. On paper, Badale was the public face, a credible tech investor with a cricket academy in his past. In reality, Modi’s family was the largest, giving rise to whispers of a conflict: the IPL commissioner allegedly included his relatives through the backdoor in the franchise he oversaw.

Modi personally designed the tournament, conducted the auction and recruited franchise owners. Investigators later alleged that he also ensured that his family had a majority stake in one of the eight teams he oversaw. Rajasthan Royals did not fall cheap just like that. He was controversial from day one.

Test

When the Foreign Investment Promotion Board tried to investigate the ownership in 2009, it asked a question that no one could clearly answer: How did Badale come up with a $5 million earnest money deposit on behalf of a company that did not yet exist? When the BCCI investigated further in 2010 and discovered shareholders whose names allegedly did not appear anywhere in the franchise’s disclosed ownership, they expelled the team entirely. The Rajasthan High Court ensured restitution, but the damage was done. Rajasthan Royals were now a franchise with something to hide.

But something like magic happened on the field.

warne’s team

When Shane Warne took over the captaincy of Rajasthan in 2008, he was 38 years old. He had retired from international cricket. He was a veteran player playing in the new format with a team of budget buyers and unknowns. Shane Watson, Sohail Tanvir, Yusuf Pathan. The royals had no stars, no budget, no glamour.

He won the tournament. They, almost instantly, became cricket’s great romantic story: the cheapest team, the forgotten franchise, lifting the trophy.

Warne’s association with the franchise will last longer than captaincy. When the team rebuilt after its worst years in 2018, he returned as a stakeholder, and received equity in recognition of everything he had done for the club.

scams

The shadow of Chellaram-Modi never completely lifted, but new disasters added to it. In 2013, three Rajasthan Royals players – Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan and Ajit Chandila – were arrested by Delhi Police on spot-fixing charges.

The same year, the Income Tax Department launched a formal anonymous investigation into the franchise’s founder ownership structure, sending a detailed questionnaire to the BCCI about the Modi-Chellaram nexus and the post-auction shell company maze.

Then, in 2015, the Supreme Court-appointed Mudgal Committee found co-owner Raj Kundra, husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, guilty of illegal betting, having bought the franchise when it doubled in value in its first year.

BCCI suspended the Royals. For 2016 and 2017, there was no Rajasthan Royals in the IPL.

Franchises have been expelled, investigated, fixed, staked and banned. And yet the underlying asset continued to appreciate. Perhaps this is the moral of the IPL business story: scams are temporary, valuations are permanent.

Reconstruction

The Royals returned in 2018 with a physically cleaner structure. The opacity was gone; Shetty and Kundra left; Badale’s emerging media was now more clearly in control. The team was re-imagined around young Indian talent. Sanju Samson, finally, as the captain; Yashasvi Jaiswal rose through the ranks.

Warne’s magic never recovered. Base partially shifted to Assam. The captaincy was handed over to Riyan Parag, who surprisingly survived the tumultuous journey.

sales

By 2025, with the IPL’s media rights and global profile at historic highs, Badale and existing investors decided it was time to exit. An investment bank that had managed the sale of Chelsea FC and advised Manchester United ran the process.

A consortium led by Kal Somani, an Arizona-based technology entrepreneur who had quietly held a minority stake in the franchise for years, ultimately won the bid at a reported valuation of $1.63 billion. The change in ownership is expected to take place after the conclusion of the IPL 2026 season.

The consortium supporting the acquisition includes two globally recognized sports owners: Rob Walton of the Walmart family and Sheila Ford Hamp of the Ford motor dynasty.

accounting book

The figures are surprising. A $67 million investment made in 2008 through a shell company through a Mauritius holding entity, in which the brother-in-law of an IPL commissioner was the majority beneficial owner, yielded a return of $1.63 billion after eighteen years. This is what IPL became.

Money flows in many directions. Badale, which consolidated 65% ownership before the sale, walked away with the largest individual windfall. Both Redbird Capital and Lachlan Murdoch significantly increased their returns. The Chellaram family, which held a 44.2% stake during the franchise’s most controversial years, may have collected a substantial sum for its initial investment, although the exact figures, appropriately, remain opaque.

And Lalit Modi? The Income Tax Benami investigation never resulted in a criminal conviction. The questions it raised – why the shell company, why incorporation after the auction, why the brother-in-law majority – were never conclusively answered.

What Rajasthan Royals ultimately represents is not just the story of a franchise, but an IPL story: the story of an organization that started out in question, survived a scandal on a scale that would have destroyed a smaller brand, and emerged at a valuation 24 times its founding price.

The desert kingdom which no one wanted became such a prosperous kingdom.

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Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) finally won their first Indian Premier League (IPL) title.

Royal Challengers Bangalore reach the top IPLThe brand valuation chart, according to the 2025 Houlihan Lokey Report, is the culmination of sporting success, strategic clarity and unmatched fan engagement.After years of near misses, RCB’s maiden IPL title win ended a 17-year wait, turning the franchise’s story from perennial underachievers to instant champions. That long-awaited win not only provided silverware but also boosted their brand value to a league-leading US$269 million.