Bangalore Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya has blasted skipper Rahul Dravid and former chief executive Charu Sharma for not allowing him to select the players he wanted.

The Indian Premier League strugglers are effectively out of contention for a semi-final place after losing seven of their nine matches and slipping to the bottom of the table.

The poor showing has resulted in the axing of Sharma and coach Venkatesh Prasad being subjected to a serious dressing down.

Now Mallya has aired his frustration at Dravid and Sharma publicly, saying: "I was very tempted to bid for players whom I wanted but they held me back. Obviously things have turned out differently.

"I had my own list (of players) but the fact is Rahul Dravid and Charu Sharma had their own list and at the end of the day, I decided to take the back seat."

The head of United Breweries Group added in the Deccan Chronicle: "When I participated in the second auction, Charu was tentative of the players I wanted.

"It was I who picked Misbah-ul-Haq."

Sharma claims his former employer had unrealistic expectations.

He said: "He had a wish list. He wanted almost all the best players in world cricket.

"But we had to consider a lot of aspects including whether the international players whom we were going to bid for would be available right through the IPL."

He also defended the selection of players from the second auction.

"I think we did well to get Ross Taylor, who performed credibly in the games he turned out for us," he said.

"The rest of the lot in the mop-up auction were under-19 players."