



The farce of Lalit Modi’s obsession with the IPL
My Way and joked about being “the two biggest fugitives of India”. After the inevitable backlash, Modi deleted the video and issued a rare apology.A contrite Lalit Modi is, of course, an unexpected spectacle. This is a man who has always courted controversy.
Born into the influential Modi business family as the son of K.K. Modi and grandson of Gujarmal Modi, he had both access and opportunity. Not that he did much with either.
His early years included a stint in the US as a student that ended amid legal trouble. Back in India, he built Modi Entertainment Networks, striking deals with global firms, although several partnerships later soured. That’s when he turned to cricket administration.As vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, he renovated stadiums, built academies, and grew revenues dramatically.
But all that was just the aperitif. The main course came with the IPL. As its first chairman and commissioner (no less), he introduced franchise auctions, celebrity owners, player bidding wars, and massive TV deals.
The league, a kitchy blend of hit-and-miss cricket, Bollywood glamour, and imported cheerleaders, exploded overnight.At the top of this glittering circus stood Modi, its undisputed ringmaster, riding between venues on a private jet with gold-plated fittings, a BlackBerry perpetually in hand, micromanaging every brand placement, and barking clipped instructions with the intensity of a man who believed that the whole edifice was held together by his ego alone.Indeed, to hear Modi tell it, the IPL is his singular stroke of individual genius. That version requires modification. Two years before the IPL was launched in 2008, Subhash Chandra and
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