Sundar Raman resigns as IPL COO

Sundar Raman, the chief operating officer of Indian Premier League (IPL), has stepped down from his post. Shashank Manohar, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president, has accepted his resignation. Thursday (November 5) will be Raman’s last day as the IPL COO.

Raman, who has been IPL COO since the inception of the tournament in 2008, was one of the 14 named by the Justice Lodha committee that was investigating the spot-fixing and betting scam in IPL 2013. There were numerous calls for the ouster of Raman after he was questioned by the Justice Lodha Committee for his alleged role in the spot-fixing scam.

Contrary to earlier regime, when Raman was perceived to be one of the most powerful figures in the board, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur had recently categorically stated that Raman is merely “an employee” and made it clear that they would not rush to any decision regarding him.

In December last year, when the Supreme Court made certain parts of the Mudgal Committee report public, Raman was decreed to have been ‘in touch with a contact of a bookmaker eight times during the last IPL season’.

The report said (verbatim): ‘This individual (Raman) knew of a contact of a bookie and had contacted him eight times in one season. This individual admitted knowing the con tact of the bookies but however claimed to be unaware of his connection with betting activities. This individual also accepted that he had received information about Individual 1 (Gurunath Meiyappan) and Individual 11 (Raj Kundra) taking part in betting activities but was informed by the ICC-ACSU chief by the ICC-ACSU chief that this was not actionable information.’ That contact is TV actor and former reality show contestant Vindoo Dara Singh who has been investigated by the Mumbai crime branch for his alleged role in spot-fixing.

Those who’ve tracked IPL’s progress during its most feverish phase – between 2008 to 2010, when it changed the very complexion of the game worldwide -will know of a swanky 36th floor makeshift office in a five-star luxury hotel in Mumbai from where Sundar and Lalit Modi operated. Those were days when the perception was that the two league-runners were each other’s closest confidantes.