Eye on India: Roadmap for an IPL without Modi

After a brief lull in the protracted Lalit Modi controversy, no doubt helped by the arrival of Fifa World Cup, the spotlight has once again turned to it. While it's anybody's guess if the charges of financial misappropriation can be finally proved against Modi, it will be particularly interesting to see what roadmap the IPL takes without his presence.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had taken the first step to gauge the mood of the 10 franchise owners when they met them yesterday, and would deliberate on the same at the IPL governing council meeting in Mumbai today.

The council, which had been accused of turning a blind eye to Modi's style of functioning, is nevertheless expected to endorse the decision of his expulsion before it is ratified in the board's AGM in July.

The franchise owners, a number of whose credentials had been subjected to scrutiny during April-May after the IPLgate, had been maintaining a low profile after a few sporadic words of support for the disgraced IPL commissioner.

At the end of the day, it's obvious that the negative publicity that the scandal had generated over the last three months had been extremely damaging for their respective brands given the millions that they have sunk into the product.

There could still be a few on the floor who can doubt the organisational skills of the BCCI in the absence of Modi, but after three years, the IPL ought to have developed an infrastructure to run on it's own steam. They, after all, have a retinue of highly paid executives including a CEO and the board has capped their efforts by roping in a few veteran industrial captains to run the ship too.

The biggest headache before the board, which has enough on its plate with next year's World Cup and the IPL-IV soon after, will be Modi himself. With each passing month, the maverick cricket administrator seems to be ready to take on the establishment more than ever before and it will be interesting to see who blinks first. Right from start, his refrain was that whatever he did was within full knowledge of the governing council, and has been firing direct salvoes at Sashank Manohar and N. Srinivasan — the board President and Secretary — asking for their removal from the probe panel against him.

And yes, there is this small matter of the Board AGM on July 3 as well, where new power equations are bound to be formed. All in all, the next 10 months or so are going to be extremely trying times for the BCCI!