I might have been "a little bit wrong" about Gurunath Meiyappan's role at CSK - Michael Hussey

Michael Hussey has switched to defence mode on the backfoot after his comments in his autobiography

Michael Hussey has made a U-turn on his comments in his book and has said that he was “a little bit wrong” about Gurunath Meiyappan’s position in the team.

Speaking on a podcast, he went back on his words in his autobiography, where he had said that N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Meiyappan was running the affairs of Chennai Super Kings in BCCI president’s absence. He also said that he has apologised to Srinivasan at a team dinner where both were present.

Meiyappan was arrested for alleged illegal betting earlier this year in the fallout of the spot-fixing scandal at this year’s IPL. Srinivasan was banned from taking full control of the BCCI, but after his re-election this year, was allowed to continue in full capacity by the Supreme Court (SC) of India.

However, the BCCI panel which cleared Chennai Super Kings, owned by India Cements, of which Srinivasan is the vice-president and managing director, was deemed ‘illegal’ and a new panel put up by the SC will now look into the allegations against Meiyappan.

Determining Meiyappan’s exact role in the team’s affairs forms an important part of the legal panel’s investigations. Srinivasan had called him only an “enthusiast” who roamed around with the team. However, he was actively involved in the auctions and had regular access to the team dugout, which may have got him access to inside information, something which the bookies hunt for.

“Certainly Guru was around the team a lot. I knew he was talking to Kepler [Wessels, Super Kings' coach in IPL 2008] and the players, and we saw him at training and at the hotel. I didn’t know what his official title was but he was around the team quite often,” Hussey said. “I probably may have written the wrong thing.

“I knew he was a close part of the team, no question about that, and I saw him around the team pretty much every day. [But] I am certainly not going to question the word of Mr Srinivasan. I think he would know a lot better than me about who is running the show. So maybe I got that a little bit wrong.”