Poor Business, Mr Modi

I think I owe an apology to friends, who were, I guess, sick of listening time and again that Lalit Modi was BCCI’s Man with the Midas Touch. He was a bad investment as far as my hopes are concerned.

I thought this suave, bespectacled, though cocky, Mumbai-based Rajasthan Cricket Association supremo was a mastermind, conceiving one after another marketing ploy to fill in the BCCI coffers.

I thought, he was about to prove himself even better than the man he uprooted in a BCCI coup. It was no mean achievement toppling Jagmohan Dalmiya, who had everyone in the pocket of his safari suit as he ran the Board from his suitcase. Though I was apprehensive if anyone in the new regime could match the wily Kolkata-based Marwari’s business acumen, Modi sort of impressed me.

But my trust proved misplaced. So blind in his effort to take the wind out of Subhas Chandra’s ICL sail, Modi shelled out hell lot of money to rope in the Australians, who would make a fortune even though they would NOT play a single match of the Indian Premier League! Naturally, Ricky Ponting & Co can’t laugh enough.

About 10-12 Aussies would NOT be in a position to play in IPL FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS because of their international commitment and they would still retain 10 per cent of their fee!

In other words, players like Ponting and Clarke would pocket $100,000 each just lending their name to IPL!

Poor investment by Modi and his comrades in the IPL Governing Council. He has looked like a spoilt child of a millionaire (well he actually is!) who’s on an acquiring spree even though he has no clue whether it’s worth it or not. Again, he actually is so, a failure within a family that owns the Modi Entertainment.

But what really upsets me is that Modi is NOT the pennywise mastermind, the dapper-dollar-dude, the money-minting-machine that he pretends to be. On the contrary, he proved a poor businessman, who ventured and invested in an area without any vision. In fact since Modi & Co took over, all the BCCI deals ran into problems and BCCI has spent half the time in troubleshooting.

I’m not sure whether the money BCCI earns can be called public money. Else, it could have been a huge scam, I guess.

Image: AFP