Suspend Super Kings, Royals pending inquiry: Bindra

Chandigarh: Former cricket Board president Inderjit Singh Bindra has in a passionate appeal to his buddy-turned-foe Jagmohan Dalmiya recalled the spirit the two showed in addressing some glaring inadequacies in the board administration and urged him to show the same zeal as interim chief in eradicating the ills in the system now.

As a first step, Bindra asked Dalmiya, who was board secretary when he was president, to suspend both the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals pending inquiry into the alleged betting and spot-fixing. In an open letter to Dalmiya on the eve of the working committee meeting here Sunday, Bindra called upon his old friend to clean the mess in Indian cricket now that he has chance to do and pledged his unstinted support. "Your professed desire to clean up the system has my unequivocal support. It is indeed encouraging to note your assertions to the public. Nostalgically, it reminds me of the Jaggu of yore, and gives hope that the old spark will ignite to arrest the decay and mitigate the wrongs wrought on the game of cricket," said Bindra in the letter, which is in the posession of IANS. Bindra said he has full faith in Dalmiya`s "ability to fight malpractices and wrongdoings, my hopes are with you". "Moreover, both IPL teams under a cloud should be suspended till the completion of a probe and inquiry. They should not be allowed to participate in the CLT20 and no funds out of the central revenues should be released to them. On a final note, I have hopes and expectations that you will carry your duties as the interim head of the Board with a sense of fairness and remedy," he said. Bindra also pointed out to Dalmiya that the two-member commission comprising retired judges R. Balasubranian and Jayaram T Chouta are not fit for the job since they are close to P. Raman, who is the lawyer for Super Kings team principal Gurunath Meiyappan, who is also son-in-law of N.Srinivasan. "In my opinion, the first critical decision is to conduct an independent probe into the allegations of impropriety including spot fixing and betting by the owners. As disclosed by N Ram, Justice Chowta and Balasubramaniam on the investigating panel, are closely associated with Mr. P Raman. The manner in which they were appointed disqualifes them for the job. This group is not going to inspire any public confidence. So we need to reconstitute this panel by inviting either Justices Kapadia, Venkatchaliah or Mukul Mudgal subject to their consent," he said. IANS