MUM­BAI–With just nine days to go for the start of the eighth edi­tion of the IPL, there is con­tro­ver­sy in the air. The de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Kolkata Knight Rid­ers are on a col­li­sion course with the BC­CI re­gard­ing off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine's par­tic­i­pa­tion in the tour­na­ment.

Nar­ine was banned for his sus­pect ac­tion dur­ing the 2014 Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20 and he could not play in the fi­nal against the Chen­nai Su­per Kings, which KKR lost by eight wick­ets.

He was not picked for the West In­dies tour to In­dia in No­vem­ber and he opt­ed out of the 2015 ICC Crick­et World Cup. He mod­i­fied his ac­tion and was cleared by the ICC dur­ing his bio­me­chan­i­cal test in Lough­bor­ough.

How­ev­er, in Nar­ine's case, the ICC did not or­gan­ise the test as he was not called dur­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al match. He was called dur­ing the Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20, a tour­na­ment that is run by the BC­CI.

Ac­cord­ing to the rules in the BC­CI, since he was called for a sec­ond time, he was banned from bowl­ing in any BC­CI-or­gan­ised tour­na­ment.

The BC­CI has re­fused to ac­cept the re­port sub­mit­ted by the ICC and has in­sist­ed the off-spin­ner un­der­goes an­oth­er round of test­ing at the Sri Ra­machan­dra Uni­ver­si­ty in Chen­nai.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to sources, KKR is con­tem­plat­ing le­gal ac­tion against the BC­CI. Re­ports al­so say that if Nar­ine is not al­lowed to play in the IPL, KKR might pull out of the tour­na­ment.

The team is point­ing out that since the bowler was cleared by the ICC, there is no need for a sec­ond test and the man­age­ment is firm that it will not force Nar­ine to un­der­go an­oth­er test. The team has met BC­CI pres­i­dent Jag­mo­han Dalmiya and have told him that Nar­ine has been 'tar­get­ed'.

They point­ed out that Nar­ine was not called for chuck­ing dur­ing the IPL but his ac­tion was sud­den­ly found il­le­gal in two con­sec­u­tive match­es in the CLT20.

Dalmiya's of­fice has con­firmed that the mat­ter has reached the pres­i­dent's ta­ble and that a de­ci­sion could be tak­en in a day or two. KKR chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Venky Mysore has re­fused to con­firm or de­ny the re­ports about his team speak­ing to Dalmiya.

Mean­while, in an­oth­er de­vel­op­ment, KKR have got­ten in Jo­han Botha and Azhar Mah­mood as re­place­ments for Chris Lynn and Jim­my Nee­sham. Nee­sham will miss the IPL due to a stress frac­ture in his back while Lynn is in doubt for the whole tour­na­ment due to a ham­string in­jury.