India court backs Gavaskar as cricket chief

India’s Supreme Court has recommended that batting legend Sunil Gavaskar takes over as interim president of the country’s cricket board in place of the embattled incumbent N Srinivasan.

A panel of judges on Thursday also said the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals — the two teams at the centre of an ongoing probe into illegal betting and match-fixing – should be barred from the next edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) beginning next month.

“In the place of Srinivasan, we propose to appoint an experienced cricket player like Sunil Gavaskar to replace him and function as BCCI president,” Justice A K Patnaik said at a hearing in New Delhi.

“We are not removing anyone now, but Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals will not be allowed to participate in the IPL which commences on April 16,” added Patnaik, who is head of the two-judge panel.

The proposals came two days after the same court urged Srinivasan to stand down as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to enable a “fair” investigation into allegations surrounding last year’s IPL.

The bench is looking at a damning report it commissioned into wrongdoing in last year’s edition of the annual Twenty20 tournament.

Released in February, the report concluded that Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan could be guilty of illegal betting on IPL games.

Srinivasan is regarded as the most powerful man in the world of cricket and is due to take over in July as head of the International Cricket Council.