Sport - Cricket

Modi flays Ranatunga

New Delhi: BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi has hit back at Sri Lanka Cricket chairman Arjuna Ranatunga for his “continuous blasting” of the Indian Premier League, saying his outbursts were totally uncalled for.

Modi, however, insisted that the Indian board has the “best of relationships” with the SLC and players.

Ranatunga had blamed the IPL for causing a loss of $3m revenue to SLC due to the postponement of Sri Lanka’s England tour next year, and said it was unfair that national boards don’t benefit financially from the cash-rich Twenty20 tournament. “Ranatunga is totally unjustified in his continuous blasting of IPL,” Modi said.

“At a meeting held in Bangkok a few weeks ago where BCCI officials met the Sri Lankan management — both board and government representatives — the BCCI secretary (N. Srinivasan) had clearly pointed out that it had no idea why such hostility exists.

“We are looking for answers. We hope to find a solution which is beneficial to both boards at the earliest. The officials were also quite perturbed that the situation had escalated to where it is today and were also looking for answers,” Modi told Cricinfo. Modi said SLC alone was to be blamed for the clash of dates of the second season of IPL and Lanka’s England tour next year as it knew the IPL schedule before fixing dates with ECB. — PTI

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