N Srinivasan was told that his team would win if he abstained from watching the final.
Why would N Srinivasan, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary and owner of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), deny himself the thrill of watching his team play Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League final? Worse, go into a self-exile in a five-star hotel when he might as well been cheering from the VIP enclosure at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday?
Srinivasan travelled all the way to Mumbai, checked into ITC’s 5-star hotel and sat inside his cozy suite with his wife in front of the television, which wasn’t turned on. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side went on to win the final.
Why did he do so?
Srinivasan, is it learnt, is a strong believer in astrology. His astrologer had predicted that Dhoni’s boys would win the final. The only condition he put before the owner was that he should abstain from watching the match. The Chennai-based astrologer, Venktesan, and his deputy travelled to all the places where CSK played its matches, including Dharamsala, Delhi and finally Mumbai.
Efforts to elicit a response from Srinivasan fell flat. But highly placed sources in the BCCI say that president Shashank Manohar, Srinivasan and Arun Jaitley — all IPL governing council members, stayed in ITC, Parel. Manohar and Jaitley watched the match together.
Niranjan Shah, another IPL governing council member, was keeping Srinivasan up-to-date with the score.
It was the same astrologer who conceived the CSK’s strategy, something skipper Dhoni wasn’t comfortable about. While it is claimed that even the batting order of the team was changed on the advice of the astrologer, sources close to Srinivasan deny this.
Srinivasan, however, watched the last four balls. Why? The astrologer called up and said “the winning team is a foregone conclusion. Use your remote control now.”
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