New Delhi, Aug 25 (PTI): After being rocked by charges of financial irregularities, the Indian Premier League was today hit by a fresh controversy with a report claiming that the players' auction in 2009 was fixed. 
 
According to CNN-IBN, Chennai Super Kings' owner and BCCI secretary N Srinivasan and suspended IPL chairman Lalit Modi could have been involved in ensuring specific players for the Chennai franchise.

The Chennai franchise, owned by Indian Cements, has denied any wrongdoing and said all these reports were "deliberate attempt to tarnish Chennai Super Kings and Indian Cements image".

The report, which quoted emails exchanged between Modi and Srinivasan, also raised questions over the authenticity of the auction that took place in 2009 as it was learnt that Srinivasan tried to fix the bid of former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff in his favour.

The channel quoted an email purportedly written by Modi to Srinivasan, which read "what a nightmare to convince them not to terminate (Sohail) Tanvir and also not to take Flintoff. Warne went off the handle. But have managed it by using stick and carrot strategy. Thus they have USD 1.875mn. Much loved Lalit".

CNN-IBN said two days later Flintoff was bought by Chennai Super Kings for a whopping USD 1.55mn, making him IPL's most expensive player."In the bidding process, we had full amount of USD 2mn available for us. It was Rajasthan Royals who were aggressively bidding for Andrew Flintoff for USD 1.5mn. We finally acquired Flintoff for USD 1.5mn," an Indian Cements spokesman said."When we won Flintoff in the bid where is the question of malpractice?" the spokesman questioned.