Kolkata: As the 10th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to kick off, former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president and International Cricket Council (ICC) Chairman N. Srinivasan revealed that the decision to buy Chennai Super Kings had the blessings of both the IPL chairman and Board president at that time.
Srinivasan’s decision to buy the team raised conflict of interest issues since he was an office-bearer of the BCCI then. The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) franchise was suspended from the IPL for two years due to the involvement of Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of Srinivasan and the team principal of CSK back in the 2013 when the betting scandal rocked the cricketing world. The Lodha committee passed a judgement in 2015, where CSK and the Rajasthan Royals were to be suspended for two seasons and be replaced with two new teams namely Rising Pune Supergiants and the Gujarat Lions.
Srinivasan who is the current India Cements vice-chairman and Managing Director, vowed that the Chennai based team would come back stronger in 2018. “If you are a CSK fan and are a cricket aficionado, you want to see MS Dhoni leading the side again in 2018,” he said.
Elaborating on the growth of the CSK brand, the 72-year old said, “An aura developed around the team because of its performance and its captain who was growing in stature. He adopted the city and vice-versa.
“The Tamil anthem, the colour yellow, the ‘whistle podu’ song, along with Dhoni, helped build the CSK brand. We have not been part of the IPL for two years, but that has not affected the brand one bit,” he elaborated. Srinivasan also said that CSK was unfairly banned. “You can accuse anybody of anything but you can’t accuse a single player. They just played. It was just pure jealousy,” he added.
With CSK’s two-year suspension ending later in the year, Srinivasan said the one thing he was looking forward to was seeing “MS Dhoni, wearing yellow and leading the CSK team onto the ground and come 2018 there is every possibility of it happening. We will be back with a bang.”
Come next year the CSK franchise will be given a new lease of life and hopefully this time their stint in the cash rich league will be devoid of any controversy.
(With inputs from The Hindu)