BARCELONA, February 27: Cricket icons like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid would have gone for a much higher price than the $1.5 million that Mahendra Singh Dhoni commanded, said Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Bangalore franchise in the Indian Premier League.

Speaking to a handful of reporters on the sidelines of his Formula One team Force India’s final testing session here in Barcelona, he said, “Tendulkar definitely lost out as he wasn’t put up for auction. He would easily have got a lot more than what Dhoni eventually got.”

Mallya, who has anointed his team Royal Challengers, revealed that the concept of icon players didn’t suit every team. “Franchises that didn’t have an icon enjoyed a great advantage over us. We had to be very careful of the top price as we were required to pay Dravid 15 per cent more than that,” he said.

“Hyderabad and Chennai could be very aggressive while building their teams. We had to be cautious,” he said. “I, in fact, had suggested that there shouldn’t be a cap on the outside limit. But they did not agree,” he agreed. The IPL clearly didn’t want it to become a lopsided league with a couple of teams cornering all the top players.

“It wasn’t bravado on my part,” explained Mallya, who obviously would’ve pulled out all the stops. “I know Mukesh Ambani would have outbid me on every purchase,” he added modestly. Overall, however, the UB chairman was pleased with the entire exercise and was particularly happy with his final lineup.

“I got lot of messages from my friends, congratulating me for putting such a great Test squad,” he quipped. “I was a little concerned and had word with my captain Rahul (Dravid). He, however, asked me not to worry. ‘We will show them what a Test team can do, he said’,” Mallya said.

“He just asked me one thing when we had the first meeting to decide the players: ‘Do you want stars or performers.’ Once I told him performers, we got down to identifying them. We decided we should have a potent pace attack to begin with. The first name on our list was Dale Steyn, who according to Rahul is the fastest in the world now.

“Then, we went for Bracken who is one of the finest One-day bowlers and Zaheer Khan who is the country’s spearhead. Our next target was the all-rounder. We managed to get Jacques Kallis who is easily the best going around. Then, we opted for Cameron White who is young and explosive,” Mallya revealed.

“With Anil Kumble at hand we didn’t have to go too look too far to pick our spinner. Add hard-hitting wicketkeeper-batsman Mark Boucher and we have a very strong and balanced team. Add Wasim Jaffer and Shivnarine Chanderpaul and we are looking really good. I only wish we could have bought Robin Uthappa.

“But due to budget constraints we couldn’t get him. We would have been 100 per cent complete with him. At the moment, we are 95 per cent but I am quite satisfied,” he explained. Mallya was quite surprised by the composition of some of the star-studded teams though.

“I am not clear why some of the franchises have splurged on foreign players. As you know one can only play four of them in a match. So what is the point in having so many in your team,” he asked. Mallya’s Royal Challengers have only six players from beyond India. He was also skeptical about the prized youngsters. “I want to see how those almost-million dollar lads perform under pressure. We have loads of experience in our team and I think that is what is going to count in a long-drawn league,” he concluded.

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