Hyderabad: Three major controversies marred the spirit of this year's IPL in the opening week itself. However, controversies in IPL or the Indian Premier League is not a new thing. Ever since the IPL came into existence in 2008, controversies existed in almost every edition of the cash-rich league.
The pendulum of two matches swung to the opposite end in this year's IPL due to a controversial act and decision. First MANKADING was committed by Ravichandran Ashwin when he ran Jos Butler out who was on full swing and was about to take the match away from Kings XI Punjab.
The other incident took place during the match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians in which the latter won in the last ball thriller. Here Lasith Malinga of MI bowled the last delivery and video footage clearly showed that Malinga overstepped but on-field umpire S. Ravi didn't notice that all. Had it adjudged a no-ball, RCB would have emerged victorious instead of MI.
Also, the match between Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians witnessed another controversy when R. Ashwin bowled a 7 ball over. The opening over of the match.
Controversies in IPL dates back to its inaugural year 2008 when Harbhajan Singh slapped S.Sreesanth. The following year saw Mohammed Asif being banned after testing positive for Nandrolone.
IPL has also witnessed Shashi Tharoor resigning as a union minister due to a conflict of interest case levelled against him by the then IPL chairman, Lalit Modi. Apart from being a minister, Tharoor was the owner of Kochi Tuskers. This incident also marked the downfall of Modi.
In IPL 2013, S. Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan and Ashok Chandella were arrested by Delhi Police on the charge of "fixing" the match.
The same year also saw Gurunath Meyiappan, son-in-law of the then BCCI boss Narayanaswami Srinivasan, getting arrested on the same charge.
Presented above the instances of corruption, both on-field and off-field, the question arises that inspite of the arrival of world-class technologies why this sort of malpractices can't be curbed?
