Mumbai, Feb. 15: After winning the war of nerves over Harbhajan Singh, the Indian board has blinked in the battle of beers.

Cricket Australia (CA) has agreed to let its players take part in the Indian Premier League but with a rider. No Australian player can be sponsored by — or feature in commercials for — companies or products that clash with the interests of CA’s global sponsors, who include beer-maker Foster’s, sources said.

Board of Control for Cricket in India officials, who had earlier insisted that no such protection could be given, wouldn’t comment but PTI quoted IPL chairman Lalit Modi as saying: “The issue has been resolved.”

The dispute, which had threatened to keep stars such as Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds out of the Twenty20 league, centred on the two CA sponsors with global protection, Foster’s and Travelex.

Foster’s is the official supplier of beer products to the Australian team at home and overseas. Travelex is the side’s overseas sponsor and international tour partner.

CA took a hard stand because IPL matches will be beamed live to a global audience, including in Australia by Channel Ten.

“A whole new contract for the Australian cricketers has now been scripted by the BCCI which will address CA’s sponsorship concerns,” said the agent of an Australian player negotiating with the IPL.

This means, for example, that Kingfisher, which sponsors the Bangalore IPL team, cannot have its Australian players wear shirts promoting the Kingfisher lager or feature in the brand’s ads since it’s a rival of Foster’s. The company may now have to think of alternative shirt and logo designs.

“The nitty-gritty is being worked out and we will finalise the deal in a day or two. The issue of shirt sponsors is yet to be resolved but we will find a solution,” IPL governing council member I.S. Bindra said.

There are likely to be limits also on the Pontings and Lees doing ads for companies that compete with CA’s other (non-global) sponsors. For instance, these players can promote Kingfisher airline (as opposed to the lager) in India but not in Australia because of a clash with CA’s commercial partner, Emirates.

By buckling down, the BCCI has paved the way for the Aussies to be on the bidding table for the owners of the eight IPL teams on February 20. Sources said the prospect of top crowd-pullers like Adam Gilchrist and Symonds not coming was giving cold feet to the league’s sponsors.

During earlier negotiations with CA, Modi had argued that Australians do play in English county cricket, where global protection does not apply.

“But… IPL games are expected to be televised in Australia and county cricket is not,” said a source in the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (Fica), which coordinates the activities of several national players’ associations. Although it’s not recognised by the BCCI, Fica enjoys wide acceptability in Cricket Australia.

The IPL was in a hurry to finalise the names of available players because it must hand the list to the team owners on February 18.

CA sources said the understanding was struck through the efforts of Fica, which is handling the Australian players’ contract negotiations with the IPL.