The more sensitive of cricket followers sometimes pause to ask the question: what kind of a national team do we want? In Australia, after the recent ball-tampering row and the ban on their top players, an official inquiry into the culture of the game there examined that very question.
I can’t imagine anyone giving much thought to a related question: what kind of administrators do we want?
In recent years, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has gone from being a powerful body led by powerful men to a bunch of seat-grabbers who have little impact on international affairs, and little energy to expend on the game with everything focused on court battles, finding loopholes in the rulings and playing the victim.
The Committee of Administrators (now reduced to two) set up by the Supreme Court functions in a manner indistinguishable from the body it was meant to reform.
What kind of BCCI do we want? One which is an arrogant, self-serving, politically-influenced, money-making outfit that still does a lot for cricket and cricketers, or one which follows the rules, and generally appears blameless but contributes nothing to the game?
The uncertainty in the BCCI has occasionally inspired nostalgia for the bad old days when men like Narayanaswami Srinivasan, Lalit Modi and Anurag Thakur called the shots. The Supreme Court kept Srinivasan from contesting elections and sacked Thakur. Modi had been sacked by the BCCI earlier.
Doing more good...
Yet these three men have — all the negatives apart — something to show for their efforts. Srinivasan came in as a genuine cricket fan, owner of clubs in Chennai and with the welfare of the cricketers at heart. He put in place better player contracts and substantial pensions for former players, international and domestic.
Modi is the father of the IPL which has changed the face of the sport. Thakur can take credit for expanding the game into the long-neglected north-east and for giving women’s cricket a boost with annual contracts for the players.
True, they were flawed men who were not unaware of the personal benefits that came with their positions. Businessmen and politicians know the advantages.
They were often unapproachable, considered themselves above the law, and often displayed an unhealthy disrespect for the highest court of the land. They tended to bully other international boards, letting everybody know that they had the money and the audience, and so had to be obeyed no matter what.
Once the Supreme Court-appointed judges, Justice Mudgal and Justice Lodha delineated the problem and the solution respectively following the IPL spot-fixing scandal of 2013, one imagined that would be that.
Intransigence
But the BCCI’s intransigence led to the presidential sackings, and the CoA appointed to oversee the implementation of the Lodha rulings overreached itself once the four members had been reduced to two. The continuing uncertainty has led to the philosophical question: What is the price we are willing to pay for efficiency?
The three unwise men each had issues with teamwork, personal egos and what might be called today Trumpian self-importance. But they ran efficient organisations, and Indian cricket benefited. How much are we willing to sacrifice in terms of international image and acceptance, financial jugglery, wastage, personal convenience and ignored rules in return for efficiency? Should it be 30% mess for 70% effectiveness? 40-60? 50-50? How much of a margin is acceptable?
The choice, naturally, should not be that extreme. Surely we can get a top professional who will do his job without bothering about the next election? Yes, but that will mean changing a feudal system built on favour-mongering and largesse-distribution.
It is a long battle, and changing the culture is not an easy task. The BCCI even at its worst was the best sports body in the country, but self-perpetuation was its unspoken motto.
The Srinivasans, Thakurs and Modis have been shown the door, which is a good thing. But their replacements have yet to display similar energy and professionalism. The CoA has been a disappointment, a little too eager for power initially, and a little too distanced from the game once it became a super BCCI deciding on all matters cricket.
In the Indian folk tale, anyone who sat on the throne of Vikramaditya spoke only the truth. Similarly, anyone who sits on the chairs of administrators behaves like BCCI officials. In May, the CoA chairman Vinod Rai turned 70 — that, according to Lodha is the cut-off age for administrators.
The cynics might say that the CoA is enjoying the perks of the job too much to want to change. Even a disagreement between the two members over the manner in which the CEO’s sexual harassment case should be handled becomes a public spat.
In effect, therefore, the BCCI is an organization without a proper president or secretary, without an effective CEO and overseen by half a committee that has issues of its own. Cricket’s eco system has been overtaken by its ego system.
