BCCI bigwigs boycott IPL awards night

Mumbai, Apr 23 (PTI) The Board of Control for Cricket in
India top brass boycotted the inaugural IPL Awards Night held
at a suburban hotel here Friday evening in the wake of the
spat with IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi.
BCCI President Shashank Manohar, Secretary N Srinivasan,
and Indian Premier League vice-chairman Niranjan Shah stayed
away from the event while team owners Vijay Mallya (Royal
Challengers Bangalore), Preity Zinta (Kings XI Punjab), Shilpa
Shetty and Raj Kundra (Rajasthan Royals), Gayatri Reddy
(Deccan Chargers) and Jay Mehta (Kolkata Knight Riders) turned
up.
The entire Governing Council, barring Sunil Gavaskar,
also shunned the event though most of the players came to
attend the ceremony.
The Awards Night, to honour the best-performing players
in the IPL over the last month and a half, was a
Bollywood-style entertainment extravaganza in which Shah Rukh
Khan and Karan Johar were the co-hosts.
Invitations for the awards function have been sent to all
the BCCI and IPL's Governing Council members, all the
franchise owners, players and support staff, along with the
owners of the two new teams –- Kochi and Pune -- which are to
make their debut in the league in 2011.
Among the team owners, Vijay Mallya stopped for a brief
interaction with the mediapersons in which he rubbished
match-fixing allegations and said people should wait till the
probe is over.
"I don't know who is talking about all these
match-fixing," said the liquor and aviation tycoon.
Mallya rather found fault with the politicians who, he
alleged, were raising an "unnecessary storm".
"I think there has been lot of drama, hype and
sensationalism. I would say this is uncalled for.
"Even out senior politicians don't seem to understand the
concept if IPL and what it is all about and they jump to
conclusion," said the RCB owner who has been backing Lalit
Modi all along.
"I wish there will be a proper, calm and comprehensive
inquiry and people who would read the report of the inquiry
will realise that this is a storm that is quite unnecessary,"
Mallya said.
The absence of the BCCI bigwigs is likely to add further
fuel to fire to the ongoing spat between them and Modi.
The awards function could also be the last time IPL
Commissioner Modi, whose tenure at the helm of affairs is
hanging by a thin thread, will be calling the shots at the
Board's precincts as a strong lobby is working towards
removing him from the post in the wake of the huge controversy
surrounding it. MORE PTI VKV
KAB



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