The Working Committee meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), scheduled for April 24, has been postponed.
BCCI sources said that the IPL Governing Council will now meet first (after the IPL final on April 25) to take stock of all aspects of the IPL III, the successful bids by Sahara Group (Pune) and Rendevouz Sports World (Kochi) in Chennai on March 21 and in particular the controversial events surrounding the Kochi franchise.
Clearly the BCCI President Shashank Manohar wants to set matters right and look into the powers given to Lalit Modi, Chairman, IPL. Mr. Manohar and other principal office-bearers are agitated at Modi's style of functioning, especially divulging BCCI and IPL matters on social networking and microblogging site Twitter, when it was his duty to place it before the governing council.
The survey and search carried out by the Income Tax department at the IPL office and two more places here on April 15 and the summons served on the BCCI on April 16 to produce all documents related to the IPL from 2008 has clearly got on the nerves of virtually the whole BCCI set-up.
When approached for an interview at his residence in Nagpur on April 13, Mr. Manohar said, “I have not given a single interview after I became the BCCI President (in September 2008). I am an administrator and my work should speak for what I have done.”
In the last ten months Mr. Manohar took firm decisions on IPL matters. The BCCI terminated the services of IMG for running the IPL, but restored their association with a reduced fee (from Rs. 43 crore to Rs.33 crore per IPL season). Thereafter Mr. Manohar imposed a one-year ban on Ravindra Jadeja for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct for Players and then cancelled the first Invitation to Tender (to ascertain two more franchises) here on March 7 reasoning that financial terms set out was stiff and impractical.
“Mr. Manohar had some harsh words for Modi in that meeting (on March 7). He was reprimanded for not getting the approval of the GC for including certain clauses in the Invitation to Tender. A severe reprimand is a possibility. I cannot guess what more can happen in the next meeting,” said a senior member of the Governing Council.
