Biggest mistake was to abstain from selection, says Mallya

New Delhi The King of good times is now presiding over an empire where there is very little enjoyment left. The sacking of their CEO has brutally exposed the fissures in the camp but Vijay Mallya doesn't seem to be finished just yet. On his target now appears to be his captain and icon player Rahul Dravid.

Whenever he has lined up with his royal challengers Vijay Mallya has lived up to a carefully cultivated image.

The centre of attention in a cricket team dominated by a number of players of proven international class. Now he says he didn't want most of them around in the first place. In an interview to a leading newspaper Mallya said:

"My biggest mistake was to abstain from the selection of the team. Though I watch a lot cricket whenever possible, I am no cricket expert at the end of the day. I had a separate list of players that I wanted. But since Dravid is such an iconic player I trusted his judgement. And Charu Sharma also backed him. After seeing the final list, my friends told me it looked like a Test team. But I backed both of them thinking that they advised me properly."

Clearly this was a far from settled camp to begin with. And the sacking of CEO Charu Sharma stirred the pot even more. In an interview to CNN-IBN's sister channel IBN7 Sharma dismissed suggestions that he was responsible for the way things have turned out.

Sources tell CNN-IBN that things started to go pear shaped when officials from the UB group began barging into team meetings and offering advice on tactics and strategy. Through it all skipper Dravid has maintained a stoic defence, hoping for a reversal in fortunes.

Mallya is known to be a hard taskmaster but the question is was he a bit too impatient this time around? And once the dust settles and the league is wrapped up this year what wholesale changes will he bring in?