Cleaning Up BCCI’s Augean Stables

There are so many things wrong with the BCCI. Any point is an appropriate point to start a clean up. 

The mighty Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), its constituent state cricketing associations, its sidekick the IPL are beleaguered—conflict of interest situations, nepotism,  cronyism, illegal betting, sex-on-tap, Great Gatsby style partying, big bang sponsorship deals, match-fixing, spot-fixing, money-laundering, black money; all in the context of big power and bigger bucks, and oh, it’s all about playing top class cricket too.

There are entire teams still under a shadow in the IPL, national teams too bored, jaded, and plain tired to play test cricket for their modest fee-paying nations. The viewership has been dropping as fans have grown disillusioned with rigged matches and listless performances.

There are several international players under investigation in the aftermath of government probing into payola  and sleaze. Some players, caught out, too ashamed to bear the scrutiny, have even committed suicide. This even as others, of a more brazen temperament, have weathered the storm and been exonerated.

All money, it seems, corrupts, but absolute torrents of money corrupt absolutely! But yes, what a lot of fun is had by one and all in the know.

The Indian government is presently trying to recall former IPL czar Lalit Modi, who nearly unseated the CM of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje. He also threw quite a bit of mud at Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, at sundry Congress appointees in the BCCI/ IPL, at Sharad Pawar, the Maratha strongman at the helm of the NCP, and, of course, badly dented Congress smoothie Shashi Tharoor, as well as his late wife Sunanda Pushkar.

Lalit Modi is ensconced in a mansion in London, and periodically, in parts more exotic, such as the French Riviera, Montenegro, Brazil, Monaco, Portugal.

So, best of luck to the Indian government in trying to catch him against his will.  L. Modi would, however, as he says quite often, come back in a flash, licketysplit, if he is given Z plus plus protection, and promises of a piece of all his enemies and tormentors. But that would mean I am starting a fairy tale here, given the powerful company this Modi keeps.

But at the moment, the cricketing universe—fans, players, staff, administrators, impresarios, cheerleaders—is holding its collective breath, on the will-there-be or won’t-there-be a Pakistan India Test series in Sri Lanka very soon.

This, even as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), needs the series badly to fill its empty coffers. Still, citing security reasons, it does not want to play in India, thinking it could perhaps be held in the familiar environs of the UAE instead.

But venue apart, the PCB quickly agreed to the series, backed promptly by  Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who also offered ‘unconditional’ talks on the eve of his departure for the climate conference in Paris, knowing he will meet our Prime Minister Narendra Modi there. And now he has; and we can all wonder what they spoke about.

The wealthy and influential BCCI knows the excitement and money these India-Pakistan matches would generate, and new boss Shashank Manohar has applied to the Indian government for permission to proceed. There is talk of truncating a test match from five days to four, even three. Ravi Shastri, former cricketer, potential coach, Indian team director, functionary extraordinaire of the BCCI, is advocating it.

After all, any India-Pakistan test match, or even a short-form fixture, tends to be the most viewed sequence of cricket matches on earth. Television and the sponsors love it. TRP and viewers likewise. It is generally believed you can’t ‘fix’ this particular rivalry beyond a point.

If the government of India agrees to this joust, and who knows, in the humility induced by the post Bihar election drubbing scenario, it well might, now that  the opposition Congress has already declared for it. This upcoming test series has been proposed to be held in Sri Lanka; and if it takes place, promises to bring a financial windfall to the island nation as well.

Picking Sri Lanka as the venue suits the regional cricket diplomacy of the freshly appointed Manohar, enjoying a second term after four years, as the new president of the BCCI, with two years to go, and the spot as chairman of the ICC also his, for another six or seven months.

His predecessor, the redoubtable N. Srinivasan, was ousted, at last, first in favour of the late Jagmohan Dalmiya, and now, Manohar from Nagpur.

From the political outside, the Congress party wants the Indo-Pak series to be played, in a volte face of its former position, and a new attempt to separate cricket from politics. The Shiv Sena on the other hand, has been vocal in bluntly stating that any such India-Pakistan test series would be disrespectful to all the martyrs of Pakistani-sponsored terrorism. A terrorism, they gratuitously add, that shows no signs of abating.

The Union government has not, as yet, given its assent, and it is thought in some quarters, that it will not agree under the fraught circumstances in tense India-Pakistan relations. Others say the decision to allow it has already been taken, and will be announced early, very early, in December.

Shashank Manohar, lawyer turned administrator, has hit the ground runing. An early announcement from him spoke of resolving conflicts of interest between the BCCI administration, players, and staff, and the appointment of an independent ombudsman to keep the lines untangled in future. Manohar has a clean image, bolstered by his earlier stint in the same job, and much is expected from him. He, in turn, has asked for a mere two months to ‘clean’ things up.

Meanwhile, wearing his ICC hat, he has already embarked on a misstep. he has suggested that the rejigged dominance of India, England and Australia in the ICC, engineered in part by predecessor Srinivasan, was not fair to other cricketing nations.

This, in a move reminiscent of Jawaharlal Nehru turning down the UNSC permanent membership, when it was offered to India first, way back in the 1950s, sending it spinning towards Mao’s China instead.  Present-day China, of course, is not in the mood to return the favour any time soon.

But Manohar, citing his own convoluted logic, wants to give away the hard-won Indian advantage before the ink is dry. This even as the BCCI is in line to receive 22 per cent of the ICC revenues generated going forward.

Manohar’s rather enigmatic attempt to curry favour with the very many other cricketing nations, though promptly applauded by South Africa, is not likely to be remembered by the gallery of beneficiaries going forward. After all, no good deed goes unpunished.

So let us hope that Manohar’s gush of egalitarian sentiment will be ignored, and nothing  more will come out of his less than well thought out international initiative. But he is welcome to sort things out at home and make the cricket clean and worth watching again.