Skeletons rattle in BCCI closet

With the CEO of the Chennai Super Kings, Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of the franchise owner and current BCCI president N Srinivasan, under the scanner, the sleaze-ball that is the Indian Premier League just got laden with more murk. Ever since the issue of spot-fixing within the league has come into national spotlight, not a day passes without a fresh revelation involving players, franchise owners, Bollywood actors and above all, the bookies, whose names are tumbling out of the ample cupboard of sordidness, which the IPL has transmogrified into. The luxury cruise ship of the league has evidently run into waters choppier than expected, with a whirlpool of exposures and allegations making the joyride extremely unpleasant for those who wanted to make ‘a killing’ by partaking in illicit betting rackets. With numerous bookies, flowing alcohol and unaccountable monetary transactions sustaining the league’s dodgy underbelly and helping maintain its euphoric bubble of cricketing carnivalesque, it was time that all the froth was separated from the actual scum that is floating onto the surface of the cesspool. With the arrested actor Vindoo Dara Singh clearly indicating it was under Meiyappan’s instructions that he acted as the middleman between bookies and the tainted CSK prince, the dirt has hit those occupying the highest thrones in the IPL glass palace. Even if Gurunath Meiyappan’s deposing before Mumbai police leads to no new disclosures, the fact that he had to concede and agree to a grilling session before the cops is reason enough to believe that the stain on the CSK owner’s and BCCI president’s garb will be very hard to wash off. 

While the shadow cast by sleaze trail of betters and racketeers gets longer by the day, the kingpins can no longer remain in their safe havens. As the exit of the BCCI president N Srinivasan becomes imminent, with the NCP openly demanding that he’s shown the door and the Sahara group’s Subrata Roy saying that he would stop financing Indian cricket, it is obvious that the CSK players, who have made it to the IPL finals, would be playing under extremely distressing circumstances, for no faults of their own. Clearly, the league has left sporting, in terms of actual cricket played, far behind and has metamorphosed into a giant roulette wheel of money won and lost in sickeningly unscrupulous ways. According to reports, several corporate sponsors, including Pepsi, are now debating whether to stick to the sinking ship that is the IPL bandwagon, as information on thousands of crores lost in the bookie racket surface. Clearly, the frankenstein called Indian Premier League, despite feeding off the toxic media machine of hype, hoopla and hypervisuality, has gulped down more in its foul throat that it can possibly digest.