New Delhi: The BCCI vice president, whose brainchild IPL has created a stir in the cricketing world chatted exclusively with the cricketnext readers on Friday. Here is excerpt of the chat:
Arun: Hi sir, my question is will IPL work in the long run. With the iconic players and some of the international players are in their finishing stages. Plus who is your favourite to win the inagural tournament.
Lalit Modi: Hi everyone, franchisees will be able to change players as they go along. So the iconic players are there only for the first two years.
Praven: Hi Lalit, congrats on the IPL. But when we talk about free market, why can't ICL co-exist with IPL?
Lalit Modi:: They are co-existing. They are playing their games, we are running our show.
Sriram: Sir, India does not have enough representation on the ICC officials’ panel and not a single umpire from India, what are we doing about this?
Lalit Modi:: We now have Suresh Shastri on the panel and we hope that with the impetus that we are giving, with IPL also, in which we have 16 Indians, they will learn a lot and that will help us grow the number of people on the international panel.
Ronak Vora: Dear sir, are the stadiums of India ready to host the 2011 World Cup?
Lalit Modi:: We are working on them. The Wankhede stadium is being totally demolished and re-built. Other stadiums have already worked out their plans and will be ready well in time.
Ronak vora: Dear sir, I want to ask that will there be only T20 matches in IPL also in upcoming years? Or will there be a 50-over game and also 4-5 days test match?
Lalit Modi:: The IPL will only have Twenty20 matches.
George: Like European football clubs, do you think IPL and ICL and many more will come on the up coming days? Will BCCI ready to accept those kind of club based cricket tournaments?
Lalit Modi:: ICL is already existing. Others may do their own things but they are not part of the BCCI.
Sriram Natarajan: With so much revenue flowing in IPL, what are the steps BCCI is taking to improve the domestic circuit, ground facility around India. What are the plans to improve the standard of East and South Zone, which produce less players in the highest level?
Lalit Modi:: All the money that IPL and BCCI is earning is going back into infrastructure. East and South are also getting equal weightage as the rest of the country, which will surely result in improvement all around.
Tulasi Ram Reddy: Sir, I think there may be a crisis in Indian Test cricket, once senior pros like Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and Kumble were retired. How can we tackle this situation? I think Australian Test team is in similar crisis now.
Lalit Modi:: We now have the youngest team in the world. We have great talent that will take India to become the top team in the years to come.
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