Modi tells of murder attempts

Lalit Modi, the former chairman of the IPL, has claimed that he survived three assassination attempts for refusing to fix matches in the tournament.

Modi, who was sacked from the IPL in 2010 over allegations of corruption and money-laundering and now lives in London, has made the allegations in Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket's Underworld written by the British journalist Ed Hawkins.

In Mumbai, in March 2009, Modi says: "There was a shoot-out outside my house and one guy got killed and one got picked up."

The other attempts, according to Modi, came in South Africa and Thailand and on each occasion he was warned that he was in danger by police or intelligence agencies.

Modi alleges that spot-fixing, in which cricketers fix a particular element of the game but not the overall result, is widespread: "Spot-fixing is rife in the game. And I'm talking globally. It's a Pandora's box. It's staring you straight in the face, but difficult to prove. Almost impossible to prove."

While he remained confident the IPL was clean he could not give 100% assurances and said there were times when he was concerned by certain incidents.

"I think it was clean, but I could never, sitting here today, categorically tell you that we picked up everything for spot-fixing, and that goes for all games, not just IPL. We had to warn players from time to time. We found undesirable elements in the stadium and removed them. We found them touring with players or managers of players who were in touch with bookmakers and we removed them."