The News Minute | August 27, 2014 | 11.29 am IST
Bangalore: One thing is certain – Lalit Modi’s imminent arrival in India is going to make the Indian cricket scene even more interesting than the just-held Lok Sabha elections, but with a twist.
In the electoral battlefield, rivals are openly declared, whatever be the internal ramifications. In cricket, there’s googly at every turn and the man who built the hugely successful Indian Premier League (IPL) may not have said his last word yet on what went wrong and why.
Even Modi’s worst critics conceded that the man who was born into a wealthy business family in Rajasthan is brilliant. As a student at Duke University in the United States of America (USA) he is supposed to have studied business models of American football and baseball which are money-spewing national events in that country.
Modi brought innovation to Indian cricket through the IPL but after running it for 36 months ran into rough weather finding himself accused of financial irregularities which eventually led to him having to flee the country and see his passport revoked.
With passport now in hand, Modi is expected to head back to India soon, just in time for the elections of the Indian cricket board where he is expected to give his arch-rival N. Srinivasan a good run for his money.
Speaking of money, Srinivasan too is mired in financial controversies but may have over-spent his goodwill according to observers. It has even been suggested that NCP leader SharadPawar and Srinivasan may have come together to replace Indian cricket’s other strongman Jagmohan Dalmia with Modi only to realize tardily that this man was no puppet.
Push came to shove for Modi when he bared the sweat equity according to the late SunandaPushkar, wife of Union Minister SashiTharoor who had to resign from his post following that controversy.
What next? Modi’s fans have been pointing out that when IPL received security threats in India, Modi was able to shift the entire operation to South Africa in a record period that profiled his organizational skills.
People who have known Modi from close quarters say he is perfectly capable of starting something completely different with cricketing associations in north India.
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