The BCCI on Saturday threw its weight behind Secretary N. Srinivasan and rejected suspended IPL Chairman Lalit Modi’s allegations that the senior official fixed the 2009 players’ auction.
BCCI President Shashank Manohar told reporters after the Working Committee meeting here that Mr. Modi’s accusations against Mr. Srinivasan, who owns the Chennai Super Kings team, were “blatant lies.”
“I can produce papers which prove that the charges levelled by Mr Modi against Mr Srinivasan are blatant lies,” Mr. Manohar said.
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Asked whether these papers were tabled at today’s meet and accepted by the committee members, Mr. Manohar merely said, “yes.”
Two days ago Mr. Srinivasan, had rubbished reports that he tried to ‘fix’ the players’ auction and insisted he won the bid for star England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff “fair and square.”
A TV channel had claimed that Mr. Srinivasan, in connivance with Mr. Modi, tried to fix the bid for Flintoff in the Super Kings’ favour.
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The channel had quoted an email purportedly written by Mr. Modi to Mr. Srinivasan, which read “what a nightmare to convince them not to terminate (Sohail) Tanvir and also not to take Flintoff. (Shane) Warne went off the handle. But have managed it by using stick and carrot strategy. Thus they have $1.875 million. Much love Lalit.”
Warne is the captain-cum-coach of Rajasthan Royals.
Srinivasan refutes
Mr. Srinivasan, refuting the charges while talking to another TV channel, had said he didn’t do anything wrong and his franchise outbid Rajasthan Royals as only they had the full purse of $2 million.
“I didn’t need anybody’s favour. Rajasthan Royals bid for $1.5 million for Flintoff, I beat them at $1.55 million. So where is the deal? How can I have any deal? How can Modi have control of Shane Warne unless he is the owner of the Rajasthan Royals,” he had said.
“Hundred per cent I’m telling you, we did nothing wrong.We won fair and square. We were the only one who could have bought new players because I had the full purse. I didn’t need anybody’s favour,” the BCCI Secretary had said.
“The Chennai Super Kings is the only team which had the USD two million in the purse. Everybody else had less, so we didn’t need anybody’s favour to buy Flintoff.”
Incidentally this is not the first time that Mr. Srinivasan has found himself in a controversy. A few days back, the BCCI Secretary was accused of ‘fixing’ umpires for Super Kings matches during the IPL.