New trouble from England, but Lalit Modi 'unperturbed'

New Delhi:

Perhaps Lalit Modi sums it up best in his tweet this evening: "Another day. Another show cause notice "

For the controversial ex-IPL boss is in trouble yet again, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India issuing a show-cause notice to him after the English Cricket Board accused him of inciting counties to overpower their governing body and the players to revolt if not allowed to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL). (Read: BCCI slaps Lalit Modi with fresh showcause notice)

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

Giles Clark, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman, wrote an email "informing the President, BCCI, about the activities of Mr Lalit K Modi, which are detrimental to Indian cricket, English cricket and World cricket," said BCCI secretary N Srinivasan on Thursday.

If Modi is anxious, he is not tweeting it. "Any guesses as to who's purpose ECB's Giles Clark was attempting to serve?" asks his tweet.

And he has support. One of the three county clubs which were allegedly in talks with him to start the "rebel" Twenty20 league in England, Yorkshire, has denied the allegations insisting that there was "nothing underhand" about the idea. (Read: Counties deny 'underhand' deal with Modi)

Modi has been accused of negotiating for the parallel Twenty20 league in England without the knowledge of the England and Wales Cricket Board and the BCCI.

But Yorkshire's chairman Colin Graves has 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," Graves insisted.

"IPL has been extraordinarily successful and we can learn a lot from it. There was a proper business discussion about how things might develop in the future, the sort of discussions that can benefit the whole of English cricket. Stewart Regan took notes of the meeting and forwarded them to all the Test grounds.

"I then passed those notes to Giles Clarke. Lalit Modi invited all representatives of the Test grounds to be his personal guests at the IPL final. We turned the invitation down as we were not in a position to discuss anything in detail," he added.

Graves said the counties had not been guaranteed any money during the meeting.

"We have not been guaranteed anything, but if anybody puts anything on the table we will discuss it. We have nine Test grounds and only seven Tests a year. We have to find ways to fill these grounds outside the England team," he said.

"There is no future in us creating another Twenty20 competition for all 18 counties. It is not attractive enough to fill the Test grounds. We have to create something new and exciting, a tournament with the appeal of IPL, a British version. We will continue to put these ideas to Giles," he said.

Giles is not buying and neither is the BCCI, which says any such plan would shake "the very foundation of the way cricket is administered and played across the world".

Lalit Modi s response to them, on twitter of course: "at IPL Finals I used a 'Quotation from Bhagwat Geeta Fear NOT from what is Untrue'. I believe in this. thus I am unperturbed by allegations. (sic)"

(With PTI inputs)