Lalit Modi,  Arjuna Ranatunga (Files)

So, the much anticipated USD 40m bailout deal that the Commissioner of the Indian Premier League had promised Sri Lanka has fallen off and the worst is that India is also threatening not to tour Sri Lanka in 2009 and 2010 as promised earlier allegedly for the adverse remarks that the Sri Lankan board officials had been making towards the Indian Board.

The four-member high profile delegation that went to India has returned empty handed and it is said that unless Arjuna Ranatunga is removed as the Chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket, there would be no bailout by the Indian board.

It has to be mentioned at the very outset that the remarks that Ranatunga has been making do not include any adverse comments against the Indian board, but his comments are purely targeted at the Twenty-20 tournament India has introduced, which threatens to kill international cricket and promote franchise-based cricket tournaments.

Ranatunga had every right to say that through the franchised-based tournaments, it was the players who benefited most while the cricket boards were left without any gain. And as the head of the local cricket board, he had to safeguard the finances of the institution he is heading and he has insisted on Sri Lanka team to participate in the two-Test series in England next year that would earn the country’s board a mega 2m USD.

It is the insistence of the Chairman of the Lankan board that invoked a bailout proposal by Lalit Modi and it’s believed that some prominent Sri Lankan players may have requested the IPL commissioner to intervene and come out with a bailout proposal as their participation in the second edition of the IPL was in danger.

Subsequently, a representative of the SL players’ association, Graeme Labrooy met Modi and it was there that the proposal by Modi was initially put forward.

But within days, Modi was going back on his words and pulled out from the bailout deal that he himself had promised only a few days earlier.

Modi knew exactly what Ranatunga thought of the Twenty-20 tournaments and his concerns for the finances of his own board. So after calling for the bailout deal, knowing exactly the thoughts of the Sri Lankan Chairman, why did he pull out in Bangkok eventually?

Was there an invisible hand working behind the scene to block the lucrative deal?

We mean someone, who has been harping on the belief that ‘the damage the cricket Interim Committees over the years have done for SLC finances is massive’, got wound up by the fact that SLC was going to score big could have put an abrupt end to the whole deal.

Do they have access to Modi and India? Of course yes! We remember an instance where IPL controversially invited one former cricket official, whose image had been tarnished repeatedly both locally and internationally, instead of inviting the immediate past president of the board, at this year’s launch of the inaugural IPL tournament.

What the Sports Ministry, that wanted the England series to go ahead in place of the IPL would now do, is a fact that is going to be more interesting.

The Ministry was desperate to strike a deal between the two and once the offer from India came, in no uncertain terms, Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge announced that the England series was off!