Mumbai, Aug 28 (IANS) The Indian cricket board Monday said that claims made by suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi that board secretary N. Srinivasan fixed the 2009 players’ auction were baseless and malicious.
After the working committee meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), board president Shashank Manohar told reporters here that he has papers which can prove that Modi is lying.

“I can produce papers which prove that the charges levelled by Mr. Modi against Mr. Srinivasan are blatant lies,” said Manohar, adding that the papers were tabled in the meeting.

The video of the players’ auction was shown to the working committee members at the meeting.

Srinivasan, who is the managing director of India Cements that owns the Chennai Super Kings, had already rejected claims made by Modi that he tried to ‘fix’ the 2009 players’ auction. Srinivasan maintained that he won the bid for all-rounder Andrew Flintoff “fair and square”.

Media reports suggested that Srinivasan, in association with Modi, tried to fix the bid for Flintoff in the Super Kings’ favour.

A TV channel quoted an email written by Modi to Srinivasan, that read: “What a nightmare to convince them not to terminate (Sohail) Tanvir and also not to take Flintoff. (Shane) Warne went off the handle. But have managed it by using stick and carrot strategy. Thus they have $1.875 million. Much love Lalit”.

Srinivasan said he didn’t do anything wrong and Super Kings was the only franchise that had the full purse of $2 million.