Srinivasan shrugs off controversy and BCCI return

NEW DELHI: Narayanaswami Srinivasan, the most powerful man in cricket, faces a last-ditch challenge to his reinstatement this weekend as head of India’s board, days after his son-in-law was charged in a corruption scandal.

The combative president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should be a shoo-in at Sunday’s annual meeting in Chennai after nobody came forward to contest his re-election for a third year in office.

But he now faces a new hurdle tomorrow after the Supreme Court agreed to consider a request for an injunction against Srinivasan to prevent him from standing for election, brought by a cricket association in eastern Bihar state.

India, cricket’s superpower, generates 70% of the international game’s revenue due to its vast television audiences, allowing the BCCI to have its way in all significant decisions on the game’s future.

Other international boards dread falling out with the BCCI, aware that the sale of television rights when India is in town is vital to their survival.

But the hearing is yet another headache for the 68-year-old, who had to nominally step aside from the helm of the BCCI in June – curtailing his powers – when his son- in- law Gurunath Meiyappan was named as a suspect in a corruption inquiry.

Meiyappan was on Saturday charged with cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy as part of a police investigation into claims of spot-fixing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 tournament run by the BCCI.

Meiyappan had been the team principal of the Chennai Super Kings when the scandal broke, one of the top IPL teams and which is owned by Srinivasan.

But while the charging of Meiyappan has emboldened Srinivasan’s critics, it has not stopped the man himself from seeking to resume his innings at the helm of the wealthiest and most powerful cricketing body in the world.

“I am not disqualified and neither can you push me out,” Srinivasan told reporters after charges were laid against Meiyappan. “If Gurunath is wrong, the law will take its own course.

“It is up to him to defend his position. It has got nothing to do with me.”

However, many of the game’s leading figures, including former BCCI president Inderjit Singh Bindra, argue that such a stance is untenable and Srinivasan has no moral or ethical right to seek another term.

“The IPL scandal involving Gurunath and Srinivasan is much bigger in scope and dimension than the 2000 saga,” Bindra tweeted, referring to the Hansie Cronje scandal that gripped cricket at the turn of the century.

The former South African captain, who was killed in a mystery plane crash two years later, was nailed by Delhi police at the turn of the century for hobnobbing with illegal bookmakers. — AFP