Saving cricket

Cricket has always been considered a gentleman’s game and above murky deals (“

>Accountability and autonomy ,” Dec.1). But over the past few decades, cricketers are in the news for all the wrong reasons — betting, match-fixing and so on — and this is a sad state of affairs. The BCCI may not be answerable to the government but it certainly is to tax-payers. When international Test matches or one-day matches are played, workplaces come to a virtual standstill, students skip classes and parents fund their tickets to matches. To say that the BCCI is an autonomous body and not answerable to anyone is therefore ridiculous; it is answerable to the citizens. Rights are always preceded by accountability. Autonomy doesn’t mean misusing public money.

V. Jaya Rao,

Hyderabad

Ever since the advent of the IPL, the Indian cricket administration has been embroiled in some controversy or the other. The IPL is the root cause for all the ills plaguing Indian cricket today, with BCCI administrators zealously guarding their positions to extract their pound of flesh. It is a pity the Supreme Court had to intervene to save cricket from the doldrums. It would be in the interest of cricket to ban IPL once for all and salvage its pride.

P.K. Varadarajan,

Chennai