A day after giving the boot to five players, the Kolkata team management on Wednesday said the decision was taken as coach John Buchanan felt they did not have any realistic chance to play in the Indian Premier League.
Denying that the step was aimed at cutting down on players' hotel costs, manager Joy Bhattacharya told PTI "its not right to say it's a cost cutting measure".
"We have never made any discrimination among players. If skipper Sourav Ganguly was given a laptop, the same was given to all the other players. If Sourav was given pieces of jewellery, all others also got them."
He claimed all the five players - Ranadeb Bose, Rohan Banerjee, Sourasish Lahiri, Cheteswar Pujara and Yashpal Singh were still in the team hotel, and would be there till Sunday. "They will be paid in full as per their contract."
Bhattacharya said Buchanan was of the opinion that they did not have any realistic chance to play any of the matches and there was no point in keeping them at the hotel.
"A player's hotel expenses would have come to around Rs 5 lakh. Why should we be bothered about such a small amount?" he asked.
{{/usCountry}}"A player's hotel expenses would have come to around Rs 5 lakh. Why should we be bothered about such a small amount?" he asked.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, Ranadeb said he was 'disappointed' but did not harbour any hard feelings.
"Whatever has happenned, happenned politely. The coach himself told us about it in an in direct way. We understood what the team management wanted.
"Personally, although, as a cricketer, I'm disappointed to have missed out on the IPL," he said.