IPL - no longer a "spotless" wonder

Mudgal report on IPL scam was finally tabled and surprise – Gurunath Meiyappan was indicted of spot-fixing charges. Once the scam was out in the open last year, Chennai Super Kings vehemently disowned Gurunath as their own, calling him a “Sports Enthusiast”. Damn, even I am a sports enthusiast along with 100’s of millions of Cricket crazy Indians. But that does not entitle me to meet my favorite Cricketers, talk to them during training, decide on the team formation with the coaches, bid for my favorite players, sit with them in the dugouts. But Gurunath had all these privileges and apparently, even more.

Image courtesy Twitter

Key Highlights of Mudgal Report –

• Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI chief N Srinivasan has been found guilty of spot fixing in IPL. CSK had denied that Gurunath was part of their team and was not the Principal, as claimed by Gurunath himself before the spot fixing scam. Report suggests that Gurunath was CSK’s face and director. This would mean claims provided by CSK and MS Dhoni were false.
• The names of 6 prominent Indian players have been submitted by the committee to the court in sealed cover. The sealed cover will be opened and analyzed on March 7^th, unless some news channels claim they have a copy of the same! One among the 6 players named is currently in the Indian team touring New Zealand.
• No conclusive evidence against Rajasthan Royals. However, the report suggests more investigation is needed.
• The report has also termed the measures taken by Indian Board (BCCI) in tackling sporting fraud as “ineffective and insufficient”.
• It also says that players should not be allowed to own stakes in player agencies or companies involved with cricket unless such interests are in the nature of sponsorship or endorsements. In particular, employment of the players in the franchise group companies should be avoided. Is that an indirect attack towards Dhoni, considering he has / had a stake in a player agency (the issue went under the carpet, wonder why?) and that he is also Vice President of India Cements, company that owns Chennai Super Kings.

Implication on IPL Auctions – IPL auctions will go on as scheduled. And it went fine.

Logically, IPL auctions should have been postponed. Why, you might ask? This is a spot fixing scam and IPL auction are totally independent to what happens further in the judgment. That’s true. But consider this – IPL auctions went ahead as scheduled. Players were bought by all the teams including CSK. And then the unthinkable happens – CSK banned by Supreme Court! What will happen to the players bought by CSK? What will happen to MS Dhoni and co. who were retained? Will they not play? The scenario seems unthinkable because CSK is owned by BCCI chief and BCCI controls IPL. Not only that, BCCI chief is soon to be ICC chief! His team can have no problems whatsoever. I am surprised the powers-that-be decided to go ahead with the auction. It could mean only two things – one, they are plain ignorant or two – they truly feel nothing will come out of this scam that’ll hurt CSK.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against CSK. They are a great and competent IPL team. My better half is a CSK fan. More than half of my relatives are CSK fans and the fan base increased tremendously post the ban on Kochi Tuskers Kerala. I personally am a Dhoni fan. But any team / team personnel bringing disrepute to the game needs to be dealt with. I am not saying this, its as per the IPL constitution. The same constitution was considered when banning / penalizing other teams.  So why take a different approach this time? Hey, its for these situations that IPL has a constitution in place! 

If owners are proved guilty, IPL governing council will be forced to walk the talk.