Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan after the IPL auction was deferred on Sunday. (PTI)

Mumbai, March 7: A tweet by Shah Rukh Khan to Lalit Modi said it all: “1 billion...u r nuts my friend..completely absolutely mad and wonderful.”

Stiff financial conditions set for bidders today led to the cancellation of the second franchisee auction of the Indian Premier League.

Only two bidders — Gujarat industrialist Gautam Adani and a consortium led by Videocon chief Venugopal Dhoot — turned up for the auction for the Ahmedabad and Pune teams that will enter the league next year.

The bids that were received were returned without being opened. New tenders will be issued on March 9, three days before the third edition of the IPL begins. The fresh bids are to be submitted at 10am on March 21 in Chennai and would be opened an hour later the same day.

For Modi, the IPL commissioner, this was the first big blow in what has otherwise been a dream run that began in 2008.

“Of course, I am disappointed. But it was the decision of the governing council,” a crestfallen Modi later told reporters. As if on cue, the advertisement hoarding at the media briefing came crashing down.

Led by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar, the IPL governing council cornered Modi, slamming him for the unrealistic financial criteria for short-listing bidders.

The IPL commissioner had sought a bank guarantee of $100 million and net worth of $1 billion from parties who wanted to bid for the new IPL teams.

Till a week ago, Modi had claimed eight to 12 bidders would participate in the auction — one of them being a premier English football club and another being UK’s legendary Marylebone Cricket Club or MCC, which owns the Lord’s ground.

“There was no sign of any English football club. The MCC had pulled out of the race on Saturday. Discouraged by the financial numbers, the ICICI group, which wanted Ahmedabad, had also walked away. The Sahara group, which sponsors the BCCI’s Team India, wrote an angry letter against the bank guarantee and net worth clause,” said a member of the IPL governing council.

Modi, in a tweet, acknowledged the criteria may have been a deterrent. “We got letters from many companies saying they wanted to bid. But could not due to 1 billion net worth criteria,” he said on his Twitter page, prompting friend Shah Rukh, who had picked up Calcutta at the hugely successful first auction in 2008, to describe the IPL boss as “nuts”.

Although Modi claimed today that he still had three bidders, insiders said the governing council members lost their cool when only two showed up.

“One bidder, the Jaypee Group, was not considered as they had submitted their bid after midnight on Saturday. Adani Enterprises was leading the consortium Vibrant Gujarat to bid for Ahmedabad. But it seems that did not work out and Gautam Adani made an individual bid. The other was a consortium led by (Videocon boss) Venugopal Dhoot,” said the IPL source.

Dhoot, along with Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Raj Kapoor’s daughter Reema Jain and Piramal Group scion Rajeev Piramal, was bidding for Pune.

The Videocon chairman said he was “disappointed” but added that the Sunday fiasco would not come in the way of his IPL dream.

“With such a poor response from bidders, the governing council felt this happened because of unnecessarily tough selection criteria and it was decided to defer the team auction,” said the IPL official.

“Many interested bidders complained to governing council members about the steep financial parameters. Many felt that with the IPL getting into a tussle with news television channels over the cost of coverage, the buzz around the event this time was very low. When Shashank (Manohar) asked Lalit about it, he put up a spirited defence describing how the news channels made money from IPL coverage. It was the Sony (which holds the TV rights) perspective — we did not push him hard on it as it is his call. But on the bidding aspect, we needed to get things straightened out,” said the IPL council member.

Besides changing the bank guarantee and net worth figures, the IPL council has also amended an earlier rule that required the winning bidder to place the full bid amount on the auction table.

“The new condition is that a $10-million advance performance deposit must be submitted 24 hours before the bids are opened, that is by March 20. The bidders must be ready to give 10 per cent of the amount that they bid within 48 hours after being awarded the franchise,” the IPL source said.