New Delhi: The secretary of the Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB), Aditya Verma, on Tuesday, alleged that sidelined BCCI president N. Srinivasan has been dragging the names of top and famous cricketers in the Supreme Court to cover up for his own “conflict of interest” in the board.

“I was shocked to watch how Srinivasan, through his counsels, told the honourable Supreme Court a bunch of lies on Monday to protect his own interest,” Verma said.

“Srinivasan informed the court that players like Sunil Gavaskar, Sourav Ganguly, Brijesh Patel, Anil Kumble, Ravi Shastri, Lalchand Rajput, Venkatesh Prasad and Krishnamachari Srikanth were also involved in conflict of interest in the cricket board.

“With deep regret I must say that Srinivasan is consciously tarnishing the image of some cricketing idols only to save himself.

“The point is that none of these cricketers had ever remained an office bearer in the BCCI and did not profit from those offices. So, they can never be compared with Srinivasan. At the most, they were sub-committee members. In fact, when Gavaskar was made the interim president of the BCCI to look after the IPL, he was asked by the honourable Supreme Court to relieve himself of all duties as a television commentator,” said Verma.

Verma said there were a couple of exceptions like K Srikanth and L Shivaramakrishnan. “Srikanth was widely criticized for being a Chennai Super Kings (CSK) official despite being the chairman of the national selection committee.

“Worse is Shivaramakrishnan – a commentator, an ICC sub-committee member and an India Cement employee, thanks to the blessing of one person,” Verma said.

The counsel for BCCI also dragged the name of Vijay Mallya to the Supreme Court on Monday, the CAB secretary said. “Mallya, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) boss, was only an executive committee member of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA). How could the BCCI counsel compare him with Srinivasan? Was he a BCCI member when RCB was inducted in the IPL? To protect one lie, he was only telling the court a pack of lies.”

Verma alleged Srinivasan, as the president of the BCCI and previously as the secretary and treasurer of the board, blatantly misused his power.
“Srinivasan told the court that he agreed to buy the IPL team through India Cement because there were no takers for the Chennai franchise. In reality, he did not allow any other party to submit the tender and pocketed the team himself.
“I challenge him to show all the documents related to this issue in the court,” said Verma.