Sunil Gavaskar vows controversy-free Indian leg

Mumbai: Indian cricket board interim president Sunil Gavaskar is trying his best to ensure the IPL-7 is controversy-free. The former India skipper, who chaired the IPL governing council met here on Saturday to take stock of the first leg that in the UAE, said: “We discussed the initiatives we had taken. The presence of integrity officers in every team is a big plus. They travel with the team. An education programme is in place for every player and he can’t play a game without it. Even normal fans who come to greet players are seen as suspect because of fixing issues. We have to rectify past mistakes.”

IPL chairman Ranjib Biswal said that the UAE leg was controversy-free which they wanted to repeat in India. “Venues were good and packed, 82 per cent were paid tickets (compared to 56 per cent in South Africa during the 2009 season),” he said.

“We are looking forward to the India leg. I hope IPL 2014 is remembered only for cricket. UAE was trouble free we and got more than we expected,” Gavaskar added. Gavaskar said it wasn’t fair to blame the UAE for being a fixing hub. “If it has a history of fixing problems then there should be no matches in India too. Because of a few people you can’t ban a whole country,” the former India opener said.