Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray demanded a ban on Tuesday on the controversial Indian Premier League "to save cricket." "The ongoing controversy involving IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor has maligned the image of the 'gentleman's game'. Ban the IPL to save the game of cricket," he said in a statement on Tuesday night.

Lambasting the United Provincial Alliance government, he said if it was really concerned about the popular sport, they should immediately ban the BCCI-backed cash-rich tournament. "What is this Modi, Modi going on. The entire controversy revolves around money so probe all the cricketers involved in IPL-3," he said. The Sena chief, an ardent cricket fan, wondered how come the Reliance Group-owned Mumabi Indians, who were on a winning spree in the IPL-3, all of a sudden lost to Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders in a match on Monday.

Without naming Shah Rukh's team, he said there is a need to probe how come KKR won yesterday's match and why key MI players -- Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga and Kieron Pollard -- did not play. Was there any betting involvedbehind this?, he asked. He also demanded a probe into the wealth of actors and businessmen who have pumped in huge amount of money in IPL franchisees.