Cricket takes backseat at annual meet

A time was when all the politicking would be done on the day prior to the annual general meeting. Dinners on Saturday night hosted by the bigwigs of the rival groups would be indicative of respective strengths but on Sunday morning, all present at the AGM would be united by their love for the game or their long association with it. In fact, cricket used to be the main topic at Sunday AGMs. It was a little different this time around because BCCI has tied itself up in knots in the aftermath of the IPL fixing and betting scandals. Having ruled like a benevolent dictator in his first two years, the president, Mr N. Srinivasan, seems to have pulled out all stops to reestablish the simple principle that generally prevails in BCCI — If you are not with us, you are against us. The ruling group was invariably guided by this philosophy of being in control of the game by controlling its purse strings and its elaborate favours system by which the rewards were exclusively for loyalists while opponents felt the heat of withdrawal from vital committees and other seats of power. In the rule of strongmen like Jagmohan Dalmiya and Srinivasan, this carrot and stick manoeuvring becomes pronounced. Can’t blame them because that is the only way they can retain absolute control. The board is also inured to facing legal cases with many an association tending to turn up at the door with court orders in hand and the legal team would be busy helping the admin decide which ruling was to be accepted, etc. This time the Supreme Court’s various pronouncements in the matter amounted to more than a handful on the legal front. In the end, BCCI always managed to surface unscathed and always managed to give the impression that it was above all the politics that took it into court rooms. Not this time though. What doesn’t kill us should make us strong is the inspirational saying that may have come to the rescue of many hit by a crisis. Cricket has steadfastly refused to heed any lessons from waves of betting scandals. The Australian Cricket Board ruled very early in the original cash-for-info scandal that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh could not be punished twice for the same offence after the players were fined. In doing so, they set the trend for skilful sweeping of embarrassing betting matters under the carpet. For nearly 20 years the ruling methodology has been to find some way to control the scandals by ‘fixing’ the problem. A pliant probe panel was Dalmiya’s invention and history may have repeated itself. If not for the supreme court taking up the issue, another scandal — perhaps the most serious one since a double World Cup winning cricketer has been greedily involved in fixing and a team owner has been crores of rupees deep in betting — may have run into the BCCI brick wall again. Funnily, there are no solutions save in self-regulation. This is not something we Indians do well but unless the will power turns up from somewhere, the image of the game may have been allowed to take an irreparable beating. A pity this because the current era is the one in which Team India has achieved so much while its super stars have proved to be champions on the field of play. There may be light at the end of the tunnel only if the top court decides to take an active and direct interest.