Gavaskar defends under fire BCCI chief Srinivasan

Former captain Sunil Gavaskar feels that inclusion of IPL governing council members in the BCCI Commission to enquire into the charges levelled against Chennai Super Kings official Gurunath Meiyappan should not arise any doubts whatsoever on the fairness of the probe.

BCCI president N Srinivasan on Sunday announced that the Meiyappan issue will be probed by a three-man Commission with two from the five-member IPL Governing Council being members and that has led to questions on whether the inquiry would be fair or not.

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Gavaskar does not see any issue in two IPL Governing Council members being a part of the probe.

"For us to doubt the integrity of the IPL Governing Council members is not just on. It is not fair to doubt their integrity only because of the fact that they are going to probe the Gurunath issue," Gavaskar said.

"The BCCI has probed many things connected with internal matters of the Board and if there were no issues in those how can there be any problem in this case? The call of the three-man Commission will have to be respected," he told NDTV.

On the speculation that former captain and IPL GC member Ravi Shastri could be a member of the Commission, Gavaskar said, "I don't know anything about the composition of the Commission, but I think Ravi would not be able to give much time in the coming days as he would be commentating during the Champions Trophy in UK."

On a comment by former India opener Arun Lal, who also took part in the programme, Gavaskar said, "I want to clarify that I and Ravi are not currently contracted to the BCCI."

Gavaskar said that the issue of whether Meiyappan is a team principal or owner of CSK would have to be dealt by the  Commission.

"The three Rajasthan Royals players who were arrested were contracted players of the franchise. But as far as Meiyappan is concerned, the team management has said that he was not connected with the team. The whole issue will be looked into by the Commission," he said.

Asked about Srinivasan describing S Sreesanth and his two Rajasthan Royals team-mates as accused while he did not do so while referring to Gurunath, Gavasakar said it is just a matter of semantics.

"It is a matter of this or that. Not everybody is fluent in their language. Many a times you cannot express what you want to convey. It's not a big deal and let's not go about these semantics. All these people are under investigation by national agencies. Let the police complete their investigation," he said.

Photograph: BCCI