Lalit Modi: ‘Dawood attacked me thrice, even kidnapped my son…’ Lalit Modi told why he kept distance from cricket?

Lalit Modi: IPL founder and former commissioner Lalit Modi made a big and sensational claim. For the first time after being away from the Indian cricket administration almost a decade ago, he openly told why he distanced himself from the world of cricket. Lalit Modi claims that the threats he received from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his network became a major reason for him leaving cricket.

In an interview given to news agency ANI, Lalit Modi alleged that in the initial years of IPL, he had adopted a strict stance against match fixing and betting. For this reason, he clashed with the alleged betting network, which he said was under the control of Dawood Ibrahim.

#WATCH | On being asked if he retired from cricket because of Dawood Ibrahim, IPL founder and first chairman Lalit Modi says, “It is one of the biggest reasons.”

He says, “He took three hits at me… Dawood himself said this… He missed three times… The reason was that I… pic.twitter.com/HKYlhdL2o6

— ANI (@ANI) June 4, 2026

Billions of dollars worth betting in cricket: Modi
Lalit Modi claimed that Dawood Ibrahim was associated with cricket betting for a long time. According to him, earlier illegal betting in cricket was around $2 billion, which has now increased to $4 billion per match. He said that in today’s era, entire matches are not fixed, but overs and balls are fixed. For this, very modern methods were adopted. Messages are conveyed to bettors through players’ gestures, handkerchief movements or other signals.

‘I was offered millions of dollars’
Lalit Modi says that he did not allow fixing to flourish in the first three years of IPL. They threw many people out of the stadium and also banned many people. This angered the underworld. Modi claimed that he was offered hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for turning a blind eye, but he turned it down. After this he allegedly became the target of the mafia.

The incident of 2012 was also mentioned
Referring to an incident in 2012, Lalit Modi said that a fixer in London called him at 3:30 in the night to meet ‘Baba’, an influential person. There he was allegedly asked to get an IPL team.

According to Modi, at the same time Dawood Ibrahim was called through satellite phone and he was asked for talks. However he refused to talk.

‘Attacked thrice, son kidnapped’
Making the most shocking claim, Lalit Modi said that attempts were made to attack him thrice. He told that there was firing outside his house in Mumbai. Apart from this, a conspiracy to attack him was also detected in South Africa and Montenegro.

He also claimed that his son was kidnapped in London. According to Modi, after these incidents the Mumbai Police had given him Z category security. Although there has been no official response from Dawood Ibrahim or any government agency on these claims of Lalit Modi yet, his revelations have once again sparked a debate on the old relationships between cricket, betting and the underworld.