More the merrier seems to be the motto of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) when it comes to filling committees.
It’s a moot point as to why the BCCI needs a 17-member National Cricket Academy (NCA) board, a 19-member museum committee and a 29-member marketing committee. These are special committees established years ago; the NCA came into existence 15 years ago, the game became more commercial at the turn of the new millennium and someone had a brainwave that a museum was needed to showcase Indian cricket’s legacy.
But smart as the administrators are, they put more men in the special committees in order to placate grumbling individuals of member units; being a BCCI committee or sub-committee member gave them status and respect.
The special committees offered scope for forming ‘jumbo committees’ because the BCCI’s Constitution restricts representation (one from each of the five zones) for statutory committees like the senior tournament committee, tour, programme and fixtures committee, finance committee, junior cricket committee, women’s cricket committee, all-India senior selection committee, all-India junior selection committee and the all-India women’s selection committee.
The number goes up with specialists included in the Vizzy Trophy committee, umpires sub-committee, technical committee and the IPL governing council.
Most of the committees have one of the five vice-presidents as chairman and the secretary or joint secretary as convenor.
The recent BCCI election in Chennai for 2014-17 saw four persons belonging to the Anurag Thakur panel fall by the wayside. But these four turned out to be ‘lucky losers’ as in the case of some tennis tournaments wherein ‘lucky losers’ get into the main draw.
Hence Rajiv Shukla, Ravi Savant, Chetan Desai and Jyotiraditya Scindia have been appointed chairmen of important committees. Shukla lost to Anirudh Chaudhary for the treasurer’s post, Chetan Desai to Amitabh Choudhary for the joint secretary’s post and Savant and Scinida to T.C. Mathew and C.K. Khanna for the vice-president’s post.
The only defeated candidate not to have found favour is former secretary Sanjay Patel. Similarly the GC chairman for IPL-7, Ranjib Biswal too has been overlooked.
Both Patel and Biswal, among a large group, showed unflinching loyalty to TNCA president N. Srinivasan in times of crisis and president Jagmohan Dalmiya and Thakur have played their cards well to keep both at bay. The decision to appoint defeated candidates to key positions raises moral issues, but not totally unexpected. “The battle-lines are drawn now,” responded a senior BCCI official.
With regard to why a large number of people in special committees, in particular marketing committee, when the BCCI has signed all contracts till 2017, a former junior selector and an administrator said: “Many years ago my company offered free video conferencing facility for all BCCI meetings so that members don’t have to travel. The then president who rejected our proposal saying: ‘The entire BCCI is run on TA/DA.’”
With 29 members in the marketing committee, a meeting could cost the BCCI an expenditure of Rs. 25 lakh
