Chennai `Superking' played key role in stumping Modi

New Delhi: For N Srinivasan, Sunday night was about the tough toggle between his two roles of BCCI Secretary and owner of Chennai Super Kings. His position in the Board meant he had to stay away from Indian Premier League Chairman Lalit Modi’s show, the final at the D Y Patil Stadium. But that also meant that Srinivasan was conspicuous by his absence in the VIP gallery when M S Dhoni lifted the trophy.

As the game reached its final stages, cameras at the stadium repeatedly captured the tension on Mumbai Indians owner Mukesh Ambani's face. But there were no pictures of an elated Srinivasan.
As the Men in Yellow inched closer to triumph -- and unconfirmed reports that Modi would be suspended immediately after the game fuelled the buzz in the stadium -- Srinivasan was a 90-minute drive away from Navi Mumbai, in a room on one of the upper floors of the towering ITC Grand Central Hotel in Parel.
As he watched the game on TV, he had for company, among others, BCCI president Shashank Manohar and IPL co-chairman Niranjan Shah.
All their mobile phones were switched off.

As the final got over, the phones came to life. That's when Governing Council member Rajiv Shukla called to say that Modi had invited him to be on the dais at the stadium. Shukla was asked to stay away.
At around the same time, in another part of the city, at the BCCI headquarters in Churchgate, a few men waited for a certain green signal. A couple of days back, in one of the early meetings between Manohar and Srinivasan, it had been decided that Modi would get the suspension letter after the final awards ceremony.
The email from the BCCI office was sent as planned. It was conveyed to Modi that he was no longer IPL Chairman. The graveyard shift at the BCCI headquarters was over.

A top BCCI source explained the importance of the timing: "Manohar was of the view that a suspended Chairman giving the Cup after the final would have looked out of place. Modi knew about this and thus he gave a farewell kind of speech," he said.
The source added that that the suspension wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to Modi's Sunday afternoon U-turn over attending Monday's Governing Council meeting. "Modi's press release where he set the agenda didn't hasten the suspension, it was planned long back," he said.

It was only in the wee hours, when the triumphant Chennai Super Kings returned to the team hotel, that Srinivasan got to play the franchise-owner. He welcomed Dhoni and his men with a cake, which was to be followed by a wild party.
But Srinivasan couldn't be with his team for long. The Governing Council meeting was to start in a few hours, and he had to be BCCI Secretary once again.
Source: The Indian Express

K.Venugopal
#1
Tuesday, 27 April 2010 10:44:51
If Lalit Modi has shares in any franchise and BCCI finds it illegal, it has to explain how its Vice President Sreenivasan owns Chennai Super Kings.

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