Will Sunil Gavaskar support Lalit Modi?

The media is not the only entity keeping a tab on the number of supporters Lalit Modi is left with in the governing council (GC) of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) too are doing the same; they are wondering if Sunil Gavaskar is on the other side of the fence.

The BCCI brass has not missed the point that Gavaskar was one of two GC members who attended the IPL awards night on Friday. The other was Modi’s open backer IS Bindra. Ravi Shastri, known to be close to Modi not long ago, skipped the event.

It is unlikely that Gavaskar, a revered and powerful voice in Indian cricket, will face flak from the BCCI officials for being present at the ceremony, but he has raised a few eyebrows in the board, not least because he was one of the few backers of Modi during the last GC meeting, held on March 7, when the auction process was scrapped and the IPL commissioner reprimanded.

Gavaskar confirmed to DNA on Sunday that he will be attending the GC meeting. “As for attending the IPL awards night,” he said, “don’t forget I was a member of the jury that decided on the awards. So I went to the function in that capacity. “As for the others (GC members) not attending, if you look at the previous awards events, most, if not all, weren’t there either.”

He also said he was refusing to answer questions that “deal in speculation since that unnecessarily gives more credence to a non-existent story”.