BCCI appoints HDFC's Deepak Parekh as special advisor for IPL

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board BCCI has roped in HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh as a special advisor for the Indian Premier League (IPL) as the tournament’s organisers try to provide comfort to investors and sponsors amid the uproar over the match fixing and betting scandals. BCCI officials said Parekh will advise the new team of administrators led by former cricketer and commentator Sunil Gavaskar, which will conduct the upcoming season of IPL amid intense scrutiny by both, the public and the Supreme Court in the backdrop of betting and spot-fixing scandal that broke out last year.

In a statement, the cricket board said that Parekh will be a special invitee to the Governing Council meetings of the IPL. The appointment was done at the instance of Gavaskar, who has been appointed the board’s interim president for the IPL after the Supreme Court asked him to replace board president N Srinivasan, pending an investigation into the betting scandal that allegedly involves the latter's IPL team, Chennai Super Kings, his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan and players and owners of some other teams.

After an SC-appointed panel submitted its report, the court has found serious conflict of interest in Srinivasan continuing in office while the investigations were on. Parekh, a banker by profession who’s often called in to advise or consult the government on economic policy matters heads the country's largest mortgage lender HDFC Ltd.

“Our job is not to clean up the mess, but to ensure that IPL goes off smoothly without any controversies. I have known Sunil since school, where he was my junior and I love the game. So, when he approached me to check if I could help him in management, I agreed,” Parekh said. He said he will attend 3-4 meetings in the sixweeks that the tournament will go on.