The BCCI is ready to pass on even more into the ruling party’s hands. The current secretary, who is a BJP lawmaker, may put himself on the throne or choose to put someone who will be amenable to whatever he and his party bosses may say.
A curious situation would arise only if Rajeev Shukla works his way into becoming secretary as he is with the leading opposition party, the Congress. But the board has been known to be home to politicians of all hues rubbing shoulders, supposedly in favour of the advancement of the great game.
The point is there is a tussle for places on the BCCI even as it is being hauled over the coals in the Supreme Court. This matter of having to elect a new president at such a perilous time is fraught with risk even though the BCCI would have to act as if it is normal business since the show must go on.
While it is fair enough to pursue such a course of action, the question remains about whether the board is doing anything about the Lodha Committee recommendations apart from sending highly-paid lawyers to the top court.
The game of bringing in former presidents also backfired badly in the last year and a bit, with Jagmohan Dalmiya in not sound enough health to have aspired for the post and his replacement being a lawyer clever enough to scent an opening and use it as an opportunity to vault to a safer position of ICC’s independent chairman. While it must be good for Shashank Manohar to take an assured plum position for two years without interruption, what happens to the loss of face for the BCCI after having hailed him as the great reformer?
The Marylebone Cricket Club on St John’s Wood Road in northwest London has often been described as a “private club with a public function” and we could very well say that, in contrast, the “BCCI is public body with a private function” with office-bearers keener on using the board to promote themselves rather than try to serve the game. Justice Lodha, so enthusiastic in his enquiries to know the history of the BCCI and its shenanigans, must have noted this trend from the evidence tendered by so many.
The reorganisation of BCCI is inevitable and if real equality on the basis of one state one vote is established, there may be a slew of north-eastern states with full membership and a BCCI vote to boot. There may be very little cricket in those parts of the country now, but that can change with BCCI expertise and money.
The only problem to be envisaged is the kind of vote politics that will come into the board if a whole new set of equations creeps in. While it would be nice to see an old set of admin men go, we would still be wary of what the new crop will be like.
The point is if the BCCI undergoes the huge reforms planned by the Lodha Committee and becomes unrecognisable from the board of old, would it be more professional in letting the men in suits run it while the admin men sit back and make judgments on policy matters or would it just be new wine in an old bottle? Regional politics has done enough damage to the board and if it is to stage a true recovery what it needs most is a couple of logistics men ensuring that domestic cricket runs on schedule and international cricket maximises its revenues.
In taking Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid on the committee, the ICC has picked the best brains. Kumble, who could not cope with building his constituency as president of KSCA, might step into a different world when he resumes helping out at the ICC. This is not so much brain drain as brain gain for the international game. But it’s a pity that the likes of Kumble could not serve as admin men in India more.
But then he is not the type to play politics to feather his own nest and hence must have become unpopular down at KSCA. Indeed, Indian cricket is a strange world, perhaps unique in its combination of cricket and politics.
