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BCCI may ‘run’ to the rescue

Tharoor and Modi are on a collision course after the IPL chief went public on Twitter, questioning the ownership of the Kochi franchise. The day witnessed lots of allegations and counter allegations, twists and turns quite similar to a Twenty20 thriller. Khaleej Times takes a look at some of the important developments that unveiled following Modi’s tweets regarding Kochi team.

Strong letter

Meanwhile, according to media reports, BCCI president Shashank Manohar wrote a strongly worded letter to Modi criticising his decision to make public the ownership details.

“The issue, if any, could have been discussed at the governing council meeting and that action on your part of raising it on Twitter is unbecoming of you as a chairman of the a sub-committee of the board. Your action is in serious breach of the confidentiality clause in the agreement. Till date, you have made public statements about a lot of issues which were not even discussed in the meetings of the governing council when it is the governing council which has the authority to take decisions with regard to each and every issue related to IPL,” Manohar wrote.

Kochi letter

“Mr Lalit Modi himself, on his Twitter account, has disclosed various vital aspects of the contract today evening. Information disclosed include shareholding pattern of the consortium as well as shareholding patterns of various participating consortium member companies.

Please note that Mr. Modi has not disclosed such information for the other nine teams participating in the league. In addition, we have been seeing various remarks by Mr. Modi in the media and on Twitter, questioning the capability and the intentions of this consortium,” Vivek Venugopal, Kochi team’s co-owner said.

“We are shocked to see this unethical behaviour coming from the commissioner himself, even before 24 hours have come to pass after signing the agreement. Behaviour and actions as conducted by Mr. Modi brings complete disrespect to the sport, the IPL, as well as to the sanctity of the bidding process.”

Drug peddler

Tharoor’s officer on special duty Jacob Joseph also raised allegations against Modi, calling the IPL commissioner a ‘drug peddler’.

“Modi is someone who was convicted for possession of 400 grams of cocaine and charged with assault and kidnapping. He has even served a two-year sentence and those are the kind of people who we put in charge of cricket in this country,” he said in a TV interview.

“Why isn’t he releasing the ownership of other team members? Why does he not release the holding of Rajasthan Royals?”

-— pradeep@khaleejtimes.com