Modi to sue ECB chief: Sources

New Delhi:

In a fresh turn of events, sources have said that deposed IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi is planning to take legal action against England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarkes and sue him in the UK for defamation.

This comes after Modi was slapped a fresh showcause notice earlier this week for allegedly planning a rebel T20 league in England. BCCI secretary N Srinivasan had said in a statement that the Board issued the showcause notice after it received an e-mail from ECB chairman Clarke.

"The BCCI has issued another showcause notice to Mr Lalit K Modi today, based on an email received from Mr Giles Clarke...informing the President, BCCI, about the activities of Mr Lalit K Modi, which are detrimental to Indian cricket, English cricket and World cricket at large," Srinivasan said in a cryptic statement.

The showcause notice referred to Modi's March 31 meeting in Delhi with representatives of English counties such as Yorkshire, Lancashire and Warwickshire in which the suspended IPL chief allegedly talked about a parallel IPL in the England and Wales in which eight existing franchises would bid for nine counties in UK.

"You have allegedly discussed this as a commercial proposition...and also set out that IPL would guaranty each county a minimum of USD 3-5 million per annum plus a staging fee of USD 1.5 million if the counties supported this idea," the notice said.

"You have allegedly offered a structured deal, by which the returns would be shared 80:20 between the franchises and the counties, a player model based on the IPL model and offered inducement to gather the rest of the county members to support your ideas and goad them to overpower their own governing bodies," it said.

"You have allegedly planted a seed of thought of players' revolt if the governing bodies of respective cricket boards do not allow them to participate in this extended version of IPL," it added.

On Friday, Yorkshire, one of the three counties who were allegedly in talks with Modi over the 'rebel' league, denied the allegations insisting that there was "nothing underhand" about the idea. Yorkshire's chairman Colin Graves rubbished the allegations and said the meeting was merely about discussing an idea and the ECB was duly informed about it.

"This is totally overblown," Graves was quoted as saying in the 'Guardian'.

"It was a fact-finding mission. Lalit Modi did not put a proposition on the table. There were no secret proposals, no secret agenda, nothing underhand," he insisted.