By IANS,
New Delhi: Former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, an influential Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council member, said chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi should be given time to present his case, but if he doesn’t appear before the council April 26, he would be treated “harshly” by the Indian cricket board.
Pataudi said that all the controversies surrounding the IPL were dissapointing and felt that the Governing Council is also to be blamed for the present fall-out.
“If Modi doesn’t attend Monday’s meeting of IPL Governing Council, then I suspect the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) will deal harshly with him. Modi is also playing hard to get,” Pataudi said in an interview to NDTV.
“But if he appears before the Governing Council and asks for some more time to present his case, I think he should be given 3-4 days. We all know that he is busy with the IPL and he should be given some time.”
Blaming the entire Governing Council, Pataudi said: “For the Governing Council it all looked so OK. I thought Lalit was doing a fair job…it is wonderful product. But the members of the Governing Council should have been aware of all the issues. We should have asked him more questions about the dealings of the IPL.”
“The rumblings started last year and we should have questioned Lalit. The Governing Council was getting little bit aware after a contract was changed, a lot of people’s egos were hurt and then there was the rumblings about his style of working. So, there was already an anti-Modi movement.”
Asked what brought the downfall of Modi, Pataudi said: “His biggest failure is doing it all alone. That is his achievement also. His style of working is putting people off.”
Pataudi also said there is a clash of interest if BCCI office-bearers own IPL teams, but was in favour of former cricketers having stakes in the franchisees.
“I think there is a conflict of interest in board secretary N.Srinivasan (chairman of Indian Cements that owns Super Kings) having stakes in franchisees. But he (Srinivasan) took the approval of the board,” he said.
Pataudi feels that if Modi is ousted, a two to three member committee should be set up by the BCCI to run the Twenty20 league.