Scyld Berry/Daily Telegraph
New Delhi, Jun 16: Drugs and 'kidnap' charges could bring down Indian Premier League chief, Lalit Modi: English cricket could be affected dramatically by a hearing next month in Delhi's Supreme Court involving the man commonly referred to as the most powerful person in world cricket, Lalit Modi, commissioner of the Indian Premier League. The Supreme Court is hearing a petition regarding Modi's fitness to stand as a cricket official on the grounds that he has a criminal conviction.
According to documents in possession of The Sunday Telegraph, Modi was convicted by a United States court in 1985 after pleading guilty to charges of possessing cocaine, false imprisonment and assault. He was put on five years' probation.
In Modi's defence, his lawyers argue that the crimes took place in Modi's student days, while he was at Duke University in North Carolina, too long ago for it to have relevance or bearing on his fitness to act as a cricket official.
They also argue that the petition was born of rivalry, as it was brought by Kishore Rungta, who was deposed by Modi as president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association.
The implications for English cricket would be considerable if the Supreme Court finds against Modi and his various positions as president of Rajasthan Cricket Association, vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and commissioner of the IPL become untenable.
Modi has been the hard-liner in the Indian board's fight against the rebel rival league, the Indian Cricket League.
He has said that any English county which fields players from the ICL will be banned from taking part in the highly lucrative Champions League, which is due to be launched this autumn - and 15 of the 18 first-class counties have an ICL player on their staff.
Only on Friday he said that even if counties dropped their ICL players they would still be disqualified. The two counties which finish as winners and runners-up of the English Twenty20 competition will qualify for the eight-team competition, also involving the top two domestic teams from Australia, India and South Africa.
The prize for the winners has been announced as $5 million, which is far in excess of any previous prize in English cricket.