Amarnath inducted into IPL Governing Council

Karachi:

Former Indian Test cricketer Mohinder Amarnath has been inducted into the IPL Governing Council, after both Sunil Gavaskar and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi turned down the offer to continue as the members of the panel.

"Amarnath and Ravi Shastri will be the two international cricketers in the Governing Council. The term of the same will be one year," BCCI said in a statement.

Pataudi and Gavaskar decided not to be part of the reconstituted body after the BCCI said that council members would not be paid henceforth. "I have written a letter to the BCCI which states that I do not wish to continue with the governing council," Pataudi told a national daily. "Earlier I was on a contract with the IPL, but the new changes are unacceptable for me. So, I have decided to move on."

According to the the old system, the three former cricketers on the council - Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Pataudi - were paid Rs 1 crore (approximately $220,000) for their services.

But at the last Annual General Meeting, the BCCI decided that members would no longer get a salary. A day later, Gavaskar turned down the BCCI's offer to be part of the governing council, saying he felt that the IPL was a commercial enterprise and those working for it should be remunerated

At the AGM, the BCCI had also dissolved the existing body and set up a new one with Chirayu Amin as the chairman. The council also included five other members - Arun Jaitley, Ranjib Biswal, Anurag Thakur, Ajay Shirke and Rajiv Shukla - and two former cricketers, one of whom was Shastri, who agreed to work in an honorary capacity.