Thanks to the political slugfest, off late BCCI has become synonymous to ‘Board of corruption and conflict of interest’ rather than the governing body for cricket in india. Since its inception in 1928 with the vision to promote cricket across length and breadth of India, BCCI has gone through plethora of changes. From political slugfest, armchair wrestling for leadership, match fixing, to rave parties, BCCI has seen it all. Even Kim Jong Un has more control on his Korean People’s Army, than BCCI over its governing body (read N. Srinivasan).
The current armchair wrestling imbroglio started with the arrest of Sreesanth and couple of other Rajasthan Royals players last year. Apparently, Sreesanth used a towel as modus operandi to fix matches and Srinivas used the same towel to keep his arse glued as the BCCI president. It eventually lead to Gurunath Meiyappan (team principal- CSK) betting adventures. Ironically, Gurunath is son in law of current BCCI chief N. Srinivasan. Since then BCCI has been the epicentre of all the controversies. In a nutshell, we can surmise that Srinivasan’s family’s a closely knitted one. Thanks to their endeavors, its time IPL is rechristened, Indian propaganda league.
Here are a series of changes that BCCI should adopt in its basic structure to resurrect and regain its lost image and credibility amongst Indian cricket fans:
- For starters, BCCI should fall under the purview of government of India. I know its sounds juvenile and tad hard to gulp but rest assured, it has more pros than cons. To begin with, this would ensure BCCI would come under the ambit of RTI. There’s a large populace that feels it’d lead to corruption; but being a private organization isn’t it already fighting corruption and other malice? That’s the analogy between BCCI and UPA, both have gone through such shite that things can only improve from here.
- Only former test cricketers to be a part of BCCI. Their fervor and penchant for the game along with their expertise and oodles of experience would ensure Cricket in India remains in safe hands and its future is safeguarded. This would also ensure further growth and development of the game across the nation. I am sure like Hockey we don’t want Cricket to become a sorry state of affairs.
- Bring transparency in all processes viz. team selection, fund allocation et al. This would bring an instant check on corruption and get rid of other malice. This would cleanse the existing filth in the system created by Shukla, Modi and Jetly trio. They’ve left such a recalcitrant muck in the system that even ‘surf excel’ may fail to get rid of it.
- BCCI members to be more approachable to media and open to discussion on various matters. Currently this is missing and this leads to a lot of speculation after team selection or whenever new policies or protocols roll out. Apparently, Taliban and ISI are better informed and seem to have a better coordination than BCCI and Indian media.
- Strong work ethics and no breach of contract/conflict of interest is a prerequisite. Loopholes in BCCI ethics and policies have been overly exposed umpteen times. Be it regarding auction of players or contract of team franchise in IPL, policies and code of conduct have been brazenly ignored and bypassed. BCCI can’t work on its whims and fancies and have different standards for different people/franchise. Last time someone at BCCI adhered to code of conduct and ethics, dinosaurs still inhabited planet earth.
- BCCI to improve its image of a ‘megalomaniac’ big brother to ICC and being the world bank for ICC. BCCI has flexed its muscles time and again to take an edge during conflicts with other ICC members. From withdrawal of Steve Bucknor from rest of the series during 2008 controversial Ind-Aus series, the suspension of Harbhajan Singh ban or the appointment of L. Sivaramakrishnan as player’s representative in ICC’s committee, people have seen it all.
Cricket is more than just a game in India. With ardent India fans, its more of a cult. BCCI has a long way to go to resuscitate fan’s faith in sanctity of the game. The sooner the better.
urbanstifler 