BCCI can start to build a new superstructure

The Justice R M Lodha committee recommendations have had BCCI functionaries — from top to bottom and without exception — in a tizzy. The extent of reform advocated by the committee is sweeping and would not have been anticipated by the administration even in the worst-case scenario.

Having abided by all recommendations in the first instalment of the Lodha report a few months back (banning CSK and Rajasthan Royals from the IPL for two years etc), the BCCI mandarins would have believed that the final report would land soft blows and some jabs. But what was delivered in the first week of the new year was a kayo punch, no less.

There has been much muffled moaning and groaning I understand in the cricket administration at the severity of the report. But it would have been naïve of the mandarins in the BCCI to believe that after protracted controversy had compelled the intervention of the country’s apex court, it would have been tepid.

The Lodha report is meticulously detailed. The investigations have been extensive in depth and breadth. Almost every issue and aspect of how the cricket is being run in the country has been gone into before offering remedial measures.

There can be some grouse against judicial overreach. For example whether ministers/government servants should be debarred from holding BCCI posts. While appropriate in focusing on a malaise because of the proliferation of politicians in administration, it could be contestable when you consider that these posts are won through elections and are not appointments.

There could also be some case about the cricket logic in the recommendation that only former Test players should be national selectors. A first-class player with deep knowledge, experience and commitment might be sounder than somebody who has played a few Tests, and there are several examples to substantiate this.

Or that there should be three national selectors, not five. The point that the selectors should be independent of zonal allegiance as practiced now is well made and long overdue.

However in a vast country, may be five selectors are still needed. Also, that betting should be legalised is again long overdue, but this can’t be directed at the BCCI, rather at the lawmakers in Parliament who can amend the outdated statute.

But in the context of the overall thrust of the Lodha report, these become quibbles rather than substantive objections. Basically, what Justice Lodha has put out is that there were manifold lapses and bugs, poor systems and processes, in the way Indian cricket is being conducted.

The irony is that most of these were well known because they were manifest fairly regularly, but were ignored out of a greed for or arrogance of power in the administration: till the water had risen above the head, as it were.

Several of the lacunae have been highlighted in these columns in the past. For instance, I have never been able to fathom why the Governing Council of the IPL did not have a representative of the franchises who have invested hundreds of crores in the league?

Or why, in keeping with best standards and practices, there were’nt a couple of independent directors and a nominee from the CAG (which Justice Lodha has suggested) to ensure that the GC does not regress into a cosy club that would turn a blind eye to even glaring problems?

The biggest drawback, and perhaps the core of several issues of malfunctioning within the BCCI, has been the complete absence of a players association to be a foil to maladministration or anything affecting the sanctity of the game. 

This was always important, and became imperative, as I’ve written often, when the IPL came into existence. But neither the BCCI nor players deemed this necessary, each faction content with what they thought was a win-win arrangement.

The Justice Lodha Committee report if accepted in toto would sweeping changes, in fact a restructuring the existing edifice of cricket administration in the country. 

True, these are recommendations, and the BCCI has a right to appeal in the Supreme Court. But it stands on slippery ground, mad worse by adverse public perception. But there is a silver lining — and in my opinion extremely significant — in that the Lodha report maintains cricket is still the best run sport in the country ( therein lies an oblique warning to other sports federations/associations) and that it should remain independent of government control. That, I believe, is the platform from which the BCCI can start to build a new, fortified superstructure.