New Delhi, March 22: With the Board of Control for Cricket in India finally running out of patience and moving this season’s Indian Premier League out of India, the question is: who gets to share the IPL pie?

Both the England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket South Africa after refuting suggestions that had been floating ever since the IPL’s initial schedule was revised, came forward on Sunday stating their readiness to host the edition.

While the eventual decision lies in the hands of the BCCI, already in talks with both boards, the eight franchisees have made it clear that they want the event in England.

Many team owners are unhappy in losing out on the domestic audience, and England is the next best option for them since it has a large Indian diaspora.

However, from what has emerged on the day, the IPL had actually sounded out the South African board a month back.

"It was a courtesy call by Lalit Modi (IPL commissioner) to us... he said that we might want to be ready if there was sudden change in the schedule of this season’s IPL," a top CSA official told this newspaper.

The official said that the board had already passed on the information to Centurion, Wanderers and and Potchefstroom. "Other venues, I believe will now be informed. There has been no decision on revenue sharing though," he added.

"At this stage we are looking forward to holding discussions with IPL officials to discuss the proposal in detail," CSA chief executive Gerard Majola said in a statement.

The ECB however, maintained that were also in the hunt. "The decision has taken us by surprise. To tell you the truth, we weren’t expecting it... we will happy to host the event though. We can tackle the event of such magnitude," ECB’s head of corporate communications Colin Gibson said.

There is too much money at stake for any of the boards to drop the ball now.

Incidentally, eight members of the Mumbai Indians squad are in South Africa, for a training session in Durban. They will be trained by Shaun Pollock, who was recently signed on as the team’s mentor-cum-advisor, and Jonty Rhodes, the team’s fielding coach.