by James Astill
A fresh auction was held two weeks later in Chennai, without the stringent conditions, and this time Videocon and Adani lost out. The biggest bids were made by the Sahara Group, another giant conglomerate, with financial services and other interests, which bid $370 million for a franchise in Pune; and a consortium called Rendezvous, made up of several Maharashtrian and Gujarati business families, which bid $333 million to own a franchise in the Keralan city of Kochi. These two bids almost matched the total cost of the existing eight IPL teams only two years before.
Facing the cameras, Modi declared himself proud that the IPL was ‘on the upswing’. Yet the results of the auction were unexpected, and privately Modi was rumoured to be in a panic. As he opened the winning bids, one of those present, who was no friend to Modi, claimed to have heard him turn to Manohar and mutter: ‘Margaye, boss!’ ‘I’m dead!’
The third IPL season was by this time rattling along. Ratings were strong and the quality of the cricket had improved. But behind the scenes the tournament was in turmoil. The investors in Rendezvous accused Modi of dragging his heels on finalising their franchise agreement, while trying to force them to withdraw their winning bid. Satyajit Gaekwad, a former Congress MP related to one of them, later alleged that Modi had offered them $50 million to ‘just quit the game and get out’. Even by Indian standards of corruption, that sounded a bit improbable. Modi strenuously denied the allegation and threatened to bring legal proceedings over it. Yet it added to an impression that something was going seriously awry.
Rendezvous clung on nonetheless, seeking the protection of senior figures in the Congress party, including their mentor, Shashi Tharoor, an urbane Keralan politician, junior foreign minister and novelist. He was an unusual Indian politician. A former UN diplomat, who had been elected to parliament the previous year, Tharoor was an intellectual and genuine cricket lover. He had been instrumental in steering the Rendezvous investors to Kerala, a state mainly associated with football. And he now steeled them to resist the pressure they claimed Modi was subjecting them to. Manohar, impatient with the stand-off, ordered Modi to sign off on the franchise agreement. But an hour after he had done so, Modi hit back in a series of inflammatory messages on Twitter.
‘Who are the shareholders of Rendezvous? And why have they given this hundreds of million dollars bonanza?’ he asked, and then answered the question himself by tweeting a list of the franchise’s shareholders. Among them was a Kashmiri woman, Sundanda Pushkar, who stood to own 4.7 per cent of the franchise, which she had been given as ‘free equity’, or rights convertible into shares. She was also known on the Delhi cocktail circuit as Tharoor’s girlfriend.
Pressed by a Twitter follower for further details of this, Modi tweeted, ‘a big? I was told by him [meaning Tharoor] not to get into who owns Rendezvous. Specially Sundanda Pushkar. Why? The same has been minuted in my records.’
There are tacit rules to India’s complicated corporate sector, and Modi had just breached one. He had declared war on a government minister. Three days later tax inspectors descended on the IPL’s offices in Mumbai and Modi’s suite at the Four Seasons. In parliament the BJP opposition was meanwhile howling for Tharoor’s head. So were many in his own party. Effete and self-delighting, Tharoor had upset many in Congress with his frequent mockery for the mucky business of Indian politics. And now he appeared as venal as the next elected Indian. He protested himself innocent and his girlfriend, Pushkar, renounced her equity in the Kochi franchise. But Tharoor was not widely believed and, on the order of Sonia Gandhi, was forced to resign from the government.
Having lost its minister, Congress sought revenge. The day after Tharoor’s resignation, the Times of India splashed on the details of a confidential tax report into Modi, which had been leaked to its reporter by a senior figure in Congress. ‘Mr Lalit Modi,’ the report began, ‘has had a trail of failed ventures and defaults till four years back but has a lifestyle now that includes a private jet, a luxury yacht and a fleet of Mercedes S Class and BMW cars all acquired in the last three years.’ The report also claimed that Modi held stakes in three IPL teams: Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders. It further alleged that he was ‘deeply embroiled in both generations of black money, money laundering, betting in cricket (match-fixing of certain IPL matches).’
‘IPL has turned out to be a huge scam,’ declared a senior BJP politician, Yaswant Sinha, as more inspectors descended on the league. The offices of Multi Screen Media, World Sports Group, and three IPL franchises were all searched. So were those of India Cements, Srinivasan’s company, and, again, the offices of the IPL and BCCI.
The officers of the BCCI were deeply alarmed. They feared the board had been dishonoured. They also feared its monopoly over the affairs of Indian cricket was at risk. On the last night of the IPL season, 25 April 2010, Srinivasan’s Super Kings beat Mumbai Indians to win the third IPL. Minutes after the game ended, Modi was suspended for ‘alleged acts of individual misdemeanours’.
The following day, Manohar spelt out the charges against him. In thinly veiled language, the board accused Modi of involvement in a possible effort to rig the aborted franchise auction, of allowing irregularities in the ownership arrangements of the IPL franchises part-owned by his relatives, and also referred to allegations that a kickback, of anything up to $80 million, had been paid by Multi Screen Media during the renegotiation of TV rights. What is more, Manohar sniffed, the board objected to Modi’s ‘behavioural pattern’.
At least some of this sounded like bluster. That Modi’s relatives held stakes in the Rajasthan and Punjab franchises was well known, and their ownership pattern looked unremarkable. It would also emerge that the board had had more oversight of Modi’s operations than Manohar let on: Srinivasan, not Modi, had been signing the IPL’s cheques. In a subsequent attack on Srinivasan, Modi would claim to have fixed the IPL’s second player auction so as to ensure the England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff went to his team, as indeed he did, for $1.55 million. (Srinivasan denied the allegation, which he said lacked ‘substance or truth’.) But with the board against him, Modi was toast.
In fact, the allegations against him kept multiplying. In an email dripping with venom, the boss of the England cricket board, Giles Clarke, wrote to the BCCI to accuse Modi of plotting ‘to destroy world cricket’s structure and especially that in England, and create a new league.’ He referred to a lunch held in Delhi between Modi and the bosses of three of the biggest English counties, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Warwickshire, at which Modi was alleged to have discussed plans to expand the IPL to England.
This would create further clashes with the international calendar. Yet Stewart Regan, the Yorkshire chief executive, wrote, ‘Modi believes that most star players would take the money rather than spend months playing county/state or indeed Test cricket. Indeed, if he wanted he could even launch IPL Tests & ODIs.’ That really would be changing the world order. Modi subsequently sued Clarke; the matter was settled, confidentially, out of court.
Still Modi tried to cling on. His lawyers produced a 160-page defence, backed by 15,000 pages of supporting documentation. He challenged his suspension in the high court, then in the Supreme Court. Few honorary positions can have been fought over more fiercely, or expensively. But Modi, whatever the merits of the charges against him, had offended or alarmed too many people. Pursued by the establishment, he had run out of friends. ‘If somebody has committed some mistake,’ said his former Pawar, sadly, ‘he will have to face the music.’
In September 2010 the board finally managed to sack Modi. It then sought to purge his influence from the IPL. The generous retainers paid to the governing council members were scrapped. So were the Rajasthan and Punjab franchises, leading to another protracted legal battle, from which the teams would emerge victorious. The board also withdrew the longstanding corruption charges against its former supremo, Jagmohan Dalmiya, thereby rehabilitating him as a member. The prospect of Modi and Dalmiya, two formidable and aggrieve
d Marwaris, joining forces in exile had simply been too awful to contemplate.
I met Modi in London a couple of weeks after his sacking, for two long lunches. He had already been in exile for some time, living with his wife and three children in a vast Mayfair flat, serviced by half a dozen servants that he flew out from India on rotation. He claimed to be in London for his safety, a well-known Mumbai gangster having put out a contract on his life. That didn’t look good for Modi either; he said it was because he had refused to fix IPL matches.
Meanwhile, he was being investigated by the Indian government for possible tax evasion and foreign exchange transgressions. His Indian passport was about to be revoked. He was understandably glum. Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, was approaching and Modi said this would make him miss Mumbai all the more. ‘I’ve never spent a single Diwali outside India,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s a 24/7 witch-hunt. This has never happened to anyone in the history of India, not even to a hardened terrorist who wants to blow up the country.’
Modi’s brittleness, his lurking volatility, was always evident. He was unrelaxing company. But he was polite, even amiable, and straightforward in a way. It had not been easy to persuade him to meet me and, at a delicate time, I had half-assumed he would go back on that promise. But he did not – and Modi was also known for this. When he said he would do something, he usually kept his word.
Wary though I was of him, it was hard not to be impressed by the IPL’s creator. Not many could have done what he had done. Even his vanity seemed somehow heroic. ‘At the end of the day charges have been thrown up. And you know, as far as I’m concerned I want to take this to its logical conclusion,’ Modi said. ‘It’s very important to me to clear my name. The truth will prevail.
‘It’s not that the truth can’t prevail ... if they had anything that could pin me down, anywhere, they’d have put it in the public domain by now.
‘I mean, every agency is investigating and they haven’t got anything. The trail’s run dry. Obviously the trail’s run dry ... because there isn’t anything. And at the end of the day there’s going to be a public backlash.’
But there was no sign of that. Modi had changed cricket. At one time he had seemed almost to rule it. But now he was gone, at least for a while, and he would not be missed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
With the Daredevils
A couple of days before the start of the fourth Indian Premier League season, I drove through the gates of the Roshanara Cricket Club, a tree-girdled refuge from the noise and exhaust fumes of north Delhi. It was one of India’s great cricket venues: the Roshanara was the scene of the meeting in 1927 between Arthur Gilligan and the Maharaja of Patiala, which hastened India’s arrival as a Test-playing nation.
Five years later, shortly before the Indian side embarked on its inaugural Test tour, the ground hosted a dramatic contest between the club and a Viceroy’s XI. It demonstrated where cricketing power lay in India at the time. The teams fielded eight Indian princes between them, including two England Test players, Duleepsinhji, who scored an elegant 173, and the Nawab of Pataudi (senior) who took six wickets in the second innings. But the most remarkable performance was from the Maharaja of Porbandar, soon to be unveiled as India’s captain. On his first-class debut, he scored 22, his career-best score.
The Roshanara is now frequented by a sort of north Delhi nouveau riche, so less exalted. Its small colonial-era clubhouse has been clumsily extended, at the cost of its former elegance. Inside it is cluttered with ugly furniture and rubbishy prints of 19th-century London. As I walked through, making for the cricket pitch that the clubhouse backed on to, it was deserted save for a couple of skinny waiters lazily flicking cloths at drink-stained tabletops.
Yet outside, on the Roshanara’s historic ground, there was cricket being played. In the furnace heat of an April morning, the Delhi Daredevils, gym-honed men in coloured T-shirts and fluorescent vests, were playing a last practice match ahead of the new IPL season.
The South African Morne Morkel was running in to bowl. With his long torso upright and his legs a-whirr, he looked like a cartoon character going at full pelt. Yet he was an imposing sight. Moving through his simple, brutal action, Morkel hurled the ball – much, much faster than television can ever suggest – at the Australian James Hopes, who dabbed it into the off side and ambled through for a run. The practice proceeded at this leisurely half-pace, a bloodless display of high-class cricket skills. Clapping and encouraging one another, the fielders then jogged into new fielding positions, and Irfan Pathan took the ball.
This would be a big tournament for Irfan. At the age of 26, India’s most promising all-rounder since Kapil Dev was suffering a mid-career crisis. Beset by injuries and poor form, he had not played a Test match for three years or any cricket for a year. It was a long time since he had been celebrated for his curving in-swingers and carefree hitting. Irfan was more likely to be written about these days for his bad back or his Hindu girlfriend. Yet despite his troubles, he had just been handed a three-year contract by the Daredevils worth $1.9 million a year.
To see him bowl, that looked like a gamble. Irfan was running in hard but he was not bowling at all fast and his control was woeful. He was spraying the ball all over the place. His fellow Daredevils, mostly young Indians on a fraction of his wages, clapped and shouted encouragement after each wild delivery. But Irfan looked embarrassingly bad.
This would be a big year for the IPL too. Following its shift to South Africa in 2009 and the turbulence of 2010, its investors were anxious to see stability and profits. That was a realistic prospect; Multi Screen Media was already predicting a 20 per cent increase in IPL advertising revenues. Yet there were also some fresh doubts about the tournament.
The 2011 World Cup had ended only a few days before and many wondered whether Indian cricket fans, exhausted by the patriotic fervour occasioned by India’s victory, could be bothered to watch Kolkata Knight Riders against Chennai Super Kings. The absence of the IPL’s Svengali, Lalit Modi, was another worry. He was still in London, fighting his many lawsuits and demanding the return of his passport, and it was unclear how the tournament would manage without him.
The Rajasthan and Punjab teams had won a reprieve from the courts. But the cricket board was still trying to erase Modi’s fingerprints from the IPL. It had declared that there would be no more cricketainment. The IPL Nights parties and contract with Colors had been cancelled. There were even rumours that skimpily dressed cheerleaders would be banned. From now on, the BCCI declared loftily, the tournament would be all about cricket. That was a big worry for its investors – because cricket had never been the point of the IPL.
The turmoil had highlighted how vulnerable the franchise-holders were to the vagaries of the board. They had much less power than their counterparts in American basketball or English football. But it was also clear that they were not willing to be pushed around. The IPL team-owners were not weak and cash-strapped like the foreign cricket boards the BCCI was accustomed to bullying. They were some of the richest and most formidable people in India.
‘The BCCI is the most powerful cricket body. It dictates what happens in world cricket,’ I had been told by P.B. Vanchi, the boss of GMR Sports, which owned the Daredevils. ‘But what the BCCI has to realise is that the franchises are run by people who are very relevant in this country. We are major businesses, nation-builders, you can say. We have more than influence. We understand how to respect others and how to get respect from others.’
That sounded like a challenge. And certainly no one could doubt the influence of Vanchi’s big boss, G.M. Rao, GMR’s founder. Until the early 1980s, he had been a small-time jute-miller in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Yet as India’s economic growth began to accelerate, Rao saw that demand for infrastructure – power stations, roads and airports – would follow. Such things were controlled by the government and Rao had proved exceptionally adept at winning contracts to build them. He was charming, astute and generous
. He knew what made politicians tick. With these skills, Rao had developed one of India’s biggest firms, with assets valued at $5 billion.
Set against GMR’s main business, the Daredevils were a mere bauble. Rao had been persuaded to buy the team by a cricket-loving son. Yet owning an IPL team in Delhi also fitted well with his wider business strategy. He had bought the Delhi franchise for a relatively cut-price $84 million. According to Vanchi, this was because other bidders had been put off by Delhi’s nasty, politicised environment. ‘They were afraid of dealing with the politicians, they were afraid of dealing with the Delhi police,’ he said. But access to Delhi’s powerful politicians was something GMR actually wanted. It was in the process of building a $3 billion international airport in the city, a task that demanded dozens of permits and good relations with unions, police and other civil authorities – and therefore strong political support.
‘Let me tell you,’ said Vanchi, when we had met in Bangalore, at the pre-season player auction. ‘In Delhi I have the opportunity to invite powerful people as our guests. One of the days we get the Sonia Gandhi family into the stadium. Every day we invite six or seven cabinet ministers and their families to the match, and they all love it! Everybody in the Delhi knows the Daredevils are GMR. Through that they know that GMR owns the airport and also owns the Delhi Daredevils. Access to cricket is a big value in India.’
