IPL controversy…
IN the first instance of introspection over the IPL mess, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the former India captain and a member of the league’s governing council, has said the body failed in its role to monitor the IPL’s administration and be more questioning of decisions taken. Pataudi also said he believed Modi could have a chance of staying on in his current role if he attends Monday’s meeting.
The controversy has raised questions over the lack of monitoring by the BCCI and the IPL’s governing council, which also includes Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri.
“The IPL governing council should have been aware, they felt things were okay,” Pataudi said on NDTV. “It has been a failure … we should have been aware of what was happening. The fact that we didn’t question anything is because we were carried away with how well everything was going.”
Asked why he did not act, Pataudi said: “I saw the crowds, the IPL was very popular … the dirt that has been attached to it is sad … but as long as the product was good, I was happy. But we should have been more aware and more understanding. So if you say this governing council should be sacked, I’d say it’s a valid question.”
Pataudi also said Modi’s best bet now was to attend Monday’s meeting and plead for more time if he needed it to answer the allegations directed at him. “If he doesn’t come to the meeting, I suspect the BCCI will take a very strict view.
The BCCI will have no choice but to be harsh with Modi. Lalit is playing very hard to get. I am not sure what Modi is up to,” Pataudi said. He added there’s unlikely to be a need for a formal vote against Modi; it would, he said, be sorted through consensus.
Modi had, in a letter to BCCI president Shashank Manohar, questioned the validity of Monday’s meeting; it has been called by N Srinivasan, the BCCI secretary who is also the owner of the IPL’s Chennai franchise, and Modi pointed to the conflict of interest in his calling the meeting. Manohar has since rejected that notion.
One of the more contentious aspects of the controversy has been the allegation that a “facilitation fee” was paid during the renegotiation of the TV rights in 2009. Pataudi said it was not discussed at any meeting where he was present. Asked whether, on this issue, the governing council was looking the other way or whether it didn’t get what was going on, Pataudi said it was “a bit of both”. It wasn’t aware, he said, and was looking away in the sense that everything was going well and it didn’t need to look any further.
Pataudi explained his perspective on why the knives are now out for Modi. “Many don’t like Lalit Modi’s style of functioning. He should have done it in a different way.
“Modi’s biggest failure, he said, was that he had been doing it all alone. “He doesn’t want anyone else involved … that is his biggest strength and his biggest weakness. His style puts people off.”
The way ahead, Pataudi said, was for a group of people running the IPL instead of an individual. “The IPL is extremely popular, no doubt, and it is largely because of Modi’s efforts. But if Modi is out, I feel the BCCI now must look for two-three people to run the league unless you are a Modi and eager to spend 20 hours a day,” Pataudi said.
He was not in favour, though, of team owners’ involvement in running the league. “I don’t want owners involved at all because they are not part of BCCI. (Cricinfo)