The cloud of betting and match-fixing hangs over players from five of the eight teams
April 16th is not only the start of the IPl but also the date of Supreme Court hearing on the betting and spot-fixing scandal which broke last year during the tournament. In 2013, the Court had appointed a three-member panel led by Justice Mukul Mudgal (retired Chief Justice Punjab and Haryana High Court Chairman), l Nageswar Rao (Additional Solicitor General of India) and senior advocate Nilay Dutta.
The committee submitted a 170-page report — with annexures running into more than 4000 pages — after recording statements of players, journalists and officials associated with IPl to the apex court on the 10th of February this year. The probe - as part of its investigations - had scrutinized the role of Chennai Super Kings' alleged team official Gurunath Meiyappan — son-in-law of Board of Control for Cricket in India chief N Srinivasan.
Subsequently, the panel had found out that Meiyappan had a role in CSK and therefore the court had ordered that Srinivasan should step down from his post of BCCI president. Then, India Cements officials (owned by Srinivasan) should not be a part of IPl and Sunil Gavaskar should take over the IPl as its president while South Zone's vice-president Shivlal Yadav should run the board's day to day work.
The panel had also submitted a sealed envelope which is supposed to have names of six cricketers involved spot fixing. latest reports though suggest that the envelope contains "unverified" allegations against 12 or 13 players, and not just six as believed. These dozen or so players belong to CSK and Rajasthan Royals and three other teams. This implies that the cloud of betting and match-fixing hangs over players from five of the eight teams in the T20 tournament.