Sunil Gavaskar hopes BCCI will be more open

Dubai: The figures are out there and cannot be disputed. What certainly can is how the IPL governing council and the BCCI had gone about cleaning the off-field mess that put the tournament in a quandary last year.

“As soon as Sunny bhai took over as the IPL (interim) chief, he told me, ‘remember that IPL 2014 should be remembered for the cricket and nothing else,” Ranjib Biswal, the IPL governing council chairman, said. “To that effect, the players have signed a code of conduct and even team owners have signed it.”

Sunil Gavaskar, the court-appointed IPL chief, agreed. “The other thing I stressed on is that the game should be played hard but fair. I spoke to the captains and coaches and made that point. All the players are role models and I reminded them their responsibilities.”

Gavaskar also spoke of how he had a chat with all CEOs and owners of the franchises and asked Chief Operating Officer Sundar Raman to write to them asking if there were issues which needed to be addressed. “Every franchise responded. We are being inclusive and not exclusive,” he said.

Till now in the UAE, there’s been no controversy and it has come as a relief for BCCI. “The UAE authorities have been superb. They have gone out of their way to ensure that undesirable elements are not anywhere near the ground. The ICC and BCCI anti-corruption units have worked together and it has been a formidable effort,” Gavaskar said.