Former great Bedi has different views
kolkata — As money was spent without inhibition by team owners on the first day of the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction in Bengaluru, former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi slammed the cash-rich T20 cricket league, saying it is a platform for moneylaundering and that he hasn’t seen “anything so cheap going so expensively”.
“The IPL is responsible for bringing in somebody called Justice (R.M.) Lodha (into the game). I have never known anything so cheap going so expensively,” Bedi said while speaking at a session at the TATA Steel Kolkata Literary Meet on Saturday.
“How can one wicket cost oneand-half-crore (rupees). Can anybody justify that? One run for 97 lakh? I have no complaints about the money part of it. Players need to get more money playing for the country than playing for a wretched club,” he added.
“Do we know where all this money is coming from and where it is going? If this is not moneylaundering I don’t know what is.”
After the 2013 IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal, the Supreme Court appointed a committee under former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha, to determine punishments for those named in the Mudgal Committee report and to recommend reforms for cricket in India.
Since then, the Lodha committee had banned Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the Rajasthan Royals (RR) from competing in the IPL for two years, also banishing Gurunath Meiyappan of CSK and Raj Kundra of RR for life from taking part in any BCCI-related cricket activities in India. —