Where there is money, there is scandal. Small wonder then there has been a smell of scandal in Indian cricket for some time now. Not that other sporting bodies are pristine pure but because the public is fixated on cricket, there is an inordinately high interest in what the Board of Control for Cricket in India does and does not do. Besides, there is not much money in any other sport other than cricket.
Since the auction of the telecast rights of cricket matches, the BCCI has got into big money. This has further intensified feuds within Indian cricket. Despite handsome match fees and annual contracts even ranking players have not been able to resist the lure of illicit money. The match-fixing scandal in which names of several state and national cricketers had figured was the last spur which led the apex court to order a thorough inquiry into the workings of the BCCI.
Earlier, the same court had set up a commission under a retired High Court Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal to probe the match-fixing scam. The Justice Mudgul report too made some salutary recommendations. But it is the Justice R. M. Lodha Committee report which, if implemented in toto, promises to change the way cricket is managed in the country.
For, it takes a huge axe to the vested interests which have all these decades controlled the BCCI. Some recommendations are so far-reaching that it will be a surprise if these are implemented. For instance, the BCCI, a private company registered under the Companies Act, the Committee has said, ought to be brought under the RTI. Unless Parliament amends the law this cannot be done. The BCCI is contesting a PIL in this regard in the Madras High Court.
Again, the recommendation that betting on cricket be legalised is rather bold. However given the hypocrisy that permeates the august legislative chambers it is hard to see any MP taking the lead in endorsing the pragmatic call. In most civilised societies, betting on sport is legal, yielding handsome revenues for the state.
Another recommendation seeks to bar serving ministers from holding posts in national and state cricket bodies. This should cause no problem to politicians associated with various cricket bodies. Even the recommendation that altogether nine years be the total tenure for an office-bearer in BCCI in his entire lifetime, and that no office-bearer should hold two consecutive terms, is unexceptionable.
A number of cricket administrators have clung to their posts far longer, perpetuating lifelong cliques and proxy systems resulting in favouritism and worse. However, it must be acknowledged that prominent public figures have rendered great service to the cause of cricket over the years, be it the late S. K. Wankhede, NKP Salve and a couple of others.
Therefore, the Lodha Committee was right in not prescribing a complete ban on politicians holding posts in BCCI. Indeed, its recommendation that players be given a greater role in the administration of cricket might sound salutary but experience has shown that players are not only poor administrators but are prone to indulge in nefarious games of their own may be fine to limit the team selection to former Test players but to expect that this by itself will free the process from flaws is not borne out by experience.
The point is that checks and balances on former players administering cricket are as important as they are on professional cricket managers. As the Mudgal Committee report had tellingly observed, ‘players are not angels.’ The Lodha Committee has called for at least three more internal watchdogs for the BCCI: an ethics officer to monitor conflict of interest cases, an election officer to oversee the conduct of elections, and, above all, an ombudsman to look into complaints of misdemeanour.
The recommendation for the constitution of a players’ association too is fraught since it would draw individual players into factional cricket politics on regional/personality lines. In fact, the BCCI has been most generous in paying handsome monetary packages to present and former cricketers. Formation of what might turn out to be a trade union of former players would needlessly cause them to align with one dominant group or the other in the BCCI.
Now the ball is in the apex court. Which recommendations are to be implemented and how still remains to be determined. On the whole, it will be good if the Augean stables of Indian cricket are cleaned. That will most likely have a salutary effect on all sporting bodies as well.
