Thakur takes a potshot at Srinivasan ANOTHER ROUND OF DIRTY LINEN BEING WASHED IN PUBLIC AS BCCI SECRETARY HITS BACK
It’s an all-out war for power in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) now. Anurag Thakur, the new BCCI secretary who represents the Sharad Pawar (former BCCI President) group and N. Srinivasan, the chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC) who could not contest for the BCCI president’s post following Supreme Court orders, are taking on each other in public.
The ICC, headed by Srinivasan on Sunday has written a letter to BCCI, drawing their attention to Thakur socialising with a well known bookie. Thakur has immediately responded, asking Srinivasan to ‘share’ the list of suspected bookies with him.
At a time when BCCI is hoping to rope in Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid as advisers hoping to lift the sagging image of the board following the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scandal and it’s aftermath, the administrators are busy slinging mud at each other.
The ICC letter which is addressed to Jagmohan Dalmiya, the president of the BCCI, says that Thakur has been socialising with a suspected bookie Karan Gilhotra a few days after being elected secretary. Incidentally, Gilhotra’s name is on the latest database of ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.
Thakur has hit out
at
Srinivasan through a letter, released to the media, saying that the ICC chairman could have shared the list of bookies before accusing him. “I have earlier been the Joint Secretary of the BCCI under your Presidentship and I am now Secretary, BCCI. I only wish that you had shared the list of unverified suspected bookies with me and other colleagues, so that we could identify such persons and keep away from them.
Denying knowledge
“I have known this person, who has been active in the political and cricketing activities in Punjab and adjacent states. I had no knowledge or any clue about his activities as a suspected bookie,” the letter said.
Thakur also took a swipe
at Srinivasan with reference to his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, who is accused in the IPL match fixing scandal through the letter: “I would request at least now share with me or other colleagues in BCCI the list of suspected bookies in India so that we may keep away from them. You may also share this information with your family members, whose involvement in betting has been proved. Since the ICC advisory to me had been made in public, I would be making this letter to you public,”
Another scandal brewing since Sunday are allegations that Srinivasan used BCCI funds to hire a London-based private agency to tap the phones of board officials and hack their e-mails. The battle lines have been drawn between the two (with Thakur fighting the proxy war for Pawar) and in the coming days, more dirty linen is likely to washed in public at cricket’s expense.