BCCI capable of restoring credibility of Indian cricket: Laxman

Terming the Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting scandal as 'unfortunate', former India batsman V V S Laxman on Wednesday said the Board of Control for Cricket in India is capable of restoring the credibility of Indian cricket.

- Key points of the Justice Lodha verdict

"It (the IPL scandal) is an unfortunate incident and the BCCI is working on how to restore the credibility of the game. They have formed a working group to look into the Justice Lodha Committee recommendations. They are capable of doing that," Laxman told a television channel in Mumbai.

The Supreme-Court appointed Rajendra Mal Lodha committee last week suspended IPL teams Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals for two years for betting activities of their key officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra during the 2013 season.

Meiyappan and Kundra were handed life suspensions after they were found guilty of placing bets during the matches.

Asked about the IPL's perceived loss of credibility from the viewpoint of the fans, Laxman said, "No individual is bigger than the game and game should be the winner. It was a bad incident and I am sure the BCCI will be able to clean it up."

He believes that the IPL will bring back the game into focus with some quality cricket, in it's ninth edition next year.

"IPL is a good product. It is important for the sport and the IPL to produce some quality cricket. We should now focus on cricket. IPL 8 had some quality cricket among the eight franchises and nobody knew which teams will qualify for the play-offs till towards the end (of the league phase). Quality cricket is the need of the hour," said 40-year-old Laxman, who retired in 2012 after scoring 8,781 runs from 134 Tests.

Image: V V S Laxman

Photographs: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com