Sadly, rot in Indian cricket goes deeper than BCCI
It’s not just T-20 cricket which provides instant thrills and spills. The way developments have taken place in the first week of 2017 suggest it is going to be an eventful year for Indian sport.
The Supreme Court returned to work after the winter break and in no time spelt out the sweeping changes. It was curtains not just for BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke, the entire team has been wiped out.
Nobody minds this clean-up as the BCCI had been wasting precious time since last July and its tough posturing was only doing more damage. Finally, when the decision came to sack Thakur and Shirke, it was also a message for all the state units from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and Kerala and from the Cricket Association of Bengal in Kolkata to state units in the West.
Nobody actually minds this broom effect on Indian cricket administration. For decades, people were holding on to power as if it was some kind of a personal fiefdom. Some may claim they did a lot for cricket but deep down each one of the administrators who has been made redundant today feels life is over.
Just imagine the scenario, the number of people ineligible to stay in power is so huge, each cricket unit needs new faces. Those who thought their days would never end as administrators in power have realised that once the process of change has been set in motion by the Supreme Court, there is no escape.
There is pandemonium for sure but most of it is self-created. If you take the capital’s Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA), it has to embrace the change in constitution as suggested by the Justice RM Lodha panel.
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| Down south, barons like N Srinivasan (in pic), and Brijesh Patel are out for good. |
The “proxy runs” are over and how the DDCA will stand up again to be counted against the backdrop of the Ferozeshah Kotla ramparts is quite fascinating.
Down south, barons like N Srinivasan in the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, and Brijesh Patel in the Karnataka State Cricket Association are out for good. They had long, uninterrupted terms and to see change happen in front of their eyes could be quite painful.
The same applies to many more cricket associations. At this stage, people may wonder how the day to day affairs in the Indian cricket board (BCCI) will run. Fridays’ selection committee meeting in Mumbai did happen and Virat Kohli was named captain of the ODIs and T20 as well, even though some “officials” created problems so that the meeting got delayed.
In the absence of a clear-cut choice for the next BCCI president, the process of appointing administrators will happen soon. And once the administrators are in place, cricket can be governed professionally. It’s not tough to find a team of well-meaning people to run cricket in the BCCI but the real challenge is how state cricket units need to stand up again.
The rot in the state cricket system is deep. For long, they have been in a state of inertia. If their teams produce results in first-class cricket and some get selected to represent India, it’s a feather in their cap!
At least, that’s how they feel. It’s only when you talk to the junior cricketers and coaches who slog will you realise the state cricket units in most cities are not busy with cricket but running club houses and miscellaneous activity.
Frankly speaking, it had to end one day. Without nurturing and nourishing cricket and enjoying the huge funds allotted by the BCCI, state cricket bosses were like kings. And when it came to hosting an international match, they were more than happy as it was their chance to show clout.
All that will change and this three-year term from now on for officials is a tight one. If you are voted to office, you will have to deliver. Many see the three-year term as short as they have to take a cooling period break of three years. And the total duration they can stay in power is just nine years.
In a way, it’s a great chance for the younger lot to show they can work hard and do something constructive. To be sure, all these sweeping changes will not happen overnight. It would not be a bad idea to hire professional CEOs and run cricket even at the state level even if it seems radical.
But the challenge of promoting cricket will not really be served. If you thought only cricket was going through a churning process with MS Dhoni saying goodbye to captaincy in the shorter formats, Olympic sport in the country also need to watch out.
After the Indian Olympic Association created a mess by naming tainted Suresh Kalmadi and Abhay Chautala as life presidents, the sports ministry has not taken it lightly. It’s altogether another fact that Kalmadi and Chautala did not take up the posts for different reasons.
The sports ministry wants to push harder for reforms in administration. Forming a panel to bring out a comprehensive national sports development code looks impressive, but just on paper. There are already specific guidelines for sports federations on age and tenure limits. Yet, sports federations continue to be defiant as there is no sports law in the country. Abroad, several countries have sports laws and within that framework, athlete funding and so on are governed.
In India, sports federations want independence and autonomy but not accountability. The sports ministry needs to push hard for the sports law and not keep forming panels. Unless there is a law to enforce discipline, sports federations will continue to run without accountability.
Finally, should the Supreme Court judgment on the BCCI become applicable to national sports federations as well, we could well see more houses being cleaned up. Spring cleaning in winter, so to say.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)