A horse to water...
Prem Panicker
I must confess to a feeling of considerable amusement at some recent developments. Amusement that reached a peak -- so okay, if it is a perverse sense of humour, so be it -- when I heard that Minister for Sports Uma Bharti had held back the official letter giving the Board of Control for Cricket in India tax exemption for the conduct of the forthcoming ICC Knockout Trophy.
"First clarify what you mean by threatening to boycott ICC-sponsored tournaments," the minister tells the board.
This, a day after former BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur, commenting on the threat issued by the BCCI at the end of its working committee meeting in New Delhi on April 24, said, "We are trying to tickle the government."
Judging by the evidence, Ms Bharti doesn't much care to be "tickled". And she seems to have responded to that unwelcome attempt by giving the board a face full of egg.
The upshot of that has been a ukase from Dr A C Muthiah, to the effect that henceforth, no board official will respond to media questions about Sharjah, playing Pakistan, government interference et al -- all such questions have to be directed to the board president himself. And since said board president doesn't as a rule field questions, what this means is that henceforth, there will be no comments floating around that could get the government even more annoyed with the BCCI than it is already.
Muthiah, in fact, is slated to issue a 'clarification' later today -- one wherein he, on behalf of the board, will back track on that threat, and politely ask the government to expand on its policy vis a vis Pakistan. No bluff, no bluster -- not any more.
Wisdom dawns. Finally. Maybe now, the board will understand the necessity of appointing that media manager they have been talking about for over a year now.
That brings to mind two or three questions that have cropped up lately -- in emails, and from the odd cricket fan who takes it into his head to telephone and "rap about the game" (while on this -- could I ask those of you in the US of A to calculate the time difference before dialing for a 'rap session'? No wish to be rude, but 2.30 AM is not when I am at my best and brightest).
Why is Sharjah not considered an official venue despite hosting more ODIs than any other cricketing center in the world, is probably the most asked question. Since I am tired of answering individually, here is a collective answer: As per its constitution, the ICC comprises 10 Full Members, 25 Associate Members, and 28 Affiliate Members. Each has a cricket board. All 63 boards are recognized by the ICC, and authorized to conduct tournaments.
The CBFS, in Sharjah, does not fall under any of these categories and hence its "non-official" tag. Interestingly, though, the government went a bit overboard when it added Singapore to the list of banned venues -- Singapore has had a duly constituted board since 1974, and enjoys associate member status.
The problem, here, is semantics: What the government actually meant, but in trademark ham-handed fashion did not properly convey, was that it was against India playing in any tournament that is not organized by an officially constituted board which is duly affiliated to the ICC, but is run by a private individual or group.
So why then are matches played in Sharjah given official status? For an answer to that one, you need to apply to one Mr David Richards. It was during his tenure as CEO of the ICC, that Richards came up with this dilly.
Back to the questions, and the most common one I've been asked are: Should India be playing in Sharjah? A section of the board seems to think we should -- Raj Singh Dungarpur, a loose cannon if ever there was one, in fact emphatically signalled his disapproval of the government's ban by promptly conferring on Sheikh Abdul Rehman Bukhatir and Asif Iqbal honorary life memberships of the Cricket Club of India, which he heads.
Not a particularly smart move, this -- in fact, it is likely to blow back on Dungarpur within the next two to three weeks. But then, Raj S will be Raj S. The question of Sharjah, meanwhile, deserves to be left on the back-burner for now. Later this month, the ICC's anti-corruption unit headed by Sir Paul Condon is scheduled to release an interim report, detailing the results thus far of its ongoing probe. And judging by backstage buzz, indications are that the report will come down very heavily on cricket in Sharjah.
A related question is about the potential loss to India through not playing there. Again, this aspect has been discussed in great detail in an earlier article -- so I will, here, avoid reiteration.
That leaves one other oft-asked question to respond to -- to wit, should the government of India be interfering in the conduct of cricket in the country?
'Who is the government to tell us what to do?' is a comment you frequently hear from the mouths of the BCCI officials. Jaywant Lele, once, even went one better and said, 'We don't ask the government for money, who are they to dictate to us?'
The slapping of income tax on the BCCI should be all the answer Lele needs. As to the larger question, there is perhaps some merit in it. After all, pretty much every government enterprise is now being privatized. Every analyst is agreed that whatever the government has touched, it has ruined.
So why touch cricket?
The simple answer is that cricket administration in this country has been tempting providence for quite some time, with its arrogant indifference to public opinion. Consider the following:
When the bogey of match-fixing was first raised, the BCCI appointed former Supreme Court justice Chandrachud, armed him with a bucket of whitewash and a thick brush, and let him loose. Then came l'affaire Hansie Cronje -- and again, the board tripped all over its tongue in its haste to aver that no such thing as match-fixing exists in cricket.
A national outcry followed. Governments are notoriously quick to seize on the public mood, and the one headed by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee is no exception. Then Sports Minister S S Dhindsa ram-rodded a CBI probe down the reluctant throats of the BCCI, and that in turn sparked off a chain reaction that culminated in the appointment of the ICC's own anti-corruption unit.
Surely that was one instance where government interference, cued by popular opinion, has had a positive effect?
The proposal to set up zonal cricket academies, passed during that working committee meeting earlier this week, is being held up as a shining example of the 'vision' of the board. The origins of that 'vision' are, however, conveniently forgotten. To refresh your memory, the national outcry against corruption in cricket paralleled a similar protest against mismanagement by the board. This led to Dhindsa summoning the board functionaries for a meeting, and insisting that they prepare, and submit, a vision statement.
Point being, the board's vision statement, of which the zonal academies form part, was not a voluntary act, but the result of arm-twisting by the government. In other words, the government had to force the BCCI to do what it was supposed to do all along -- namely, to have and follow a vision for the development of cricket in this country.
So again, the government surely deserves some credit for dragging the board out of its state of apathetic indifference and forcing it to act?
I for one am certainly against government interference in sport. The government, through various constituted bodies, has run every sport played in the country barring cricket -- and the results are obvious.
So why, then, are we welcoming first Dhindsa's, then Uma Bharti's, proactive role in the running of Indian cricket? Because when compared to the board's arrogance, its indifference to all forms of public opinion, and its gross mismanagement of the game in recent times, Ms Uma Bharti is most certainly the lesser of two evils.
In August of 2000, when the BCCI released its vision statement, I remember having an on record conversation with erstwhile Rediff columnist Harsha Bhogle. The full conversation is linked below -- so, for now, I'll quote just one relevant statement Harsha made then: "I agree that the BCCI has brought the government into the picture thanks to its own ills, its own failings. Had they run cricket professionally, the government would have had neither the need nor the opportunity to enter the picture."
Today, as the Dungarpurs, Leles, Dalmiyas and Rungtas fret and fume over Uma Bharti and the Government of India, they can think of this -- the board is being disciplined, because the board refused to discipline itself.
I would have assumed that by now, the lesson would have been learnt -- but no, that is not the case. Even today, even after all this, the board seems more intent on its own internal power struggle, than in cleaning up its act and reclaiming the autonomy it once enjoyed. Thus, though the setting up of zonal academies were very much a part of that famous vision statement, that proposal, when reiterated by Raj Singh Dungarpur, triggered off a fight between him and Jaywant Lele, with the latter insisting that there was no need for such academies.
Strange, that, since Lele was very much a party to that vision statement of August 2000.
Gradation of payment to players -- in other words, a contract system -- is another item in that vision statement. Yet, the same board officials who proudly presented said statement to Dhindsa a year ago, now argue bitterly against any such move.
The appointment of a media manager -- an urgent necessity for a board as riddled with foot in the mouth artists as this one is -- is also enshrined in that statement. Yet, today, even as the board president scrutinizes applications for the post, vice-president Kamal Morarka and others argue bitterly against it.
Today, personal animosities hold center stage. If the trend continues, the BCCI could well face a tomorrow in which it finds itself completely taken over by the government. And then, it will be way too late for them to ask, 'Uma Bharti who?'
Am I reaching a bit, when postulating a possible government takeover of cricket in the future? Not at all -- the signs are clearly there, for those who will see it. Just as the signs were there in August 2000 -- had the board possessed the wisdom to understand it -- that continued defiance would land it in very hot water.
Consider, in this context, something else that came up during that conversation I had with Harsha Bhogle: "A non-profit society is mandatorily bound to plough its profits back into developing the game, the cause it is set up to serve. So I'd think if the board wants to be one, then the board should be told that its profits must go into the development of the game from the grassroots on up. If the board wants to keep 98 crore in FDs in Kishore Rungta's home, then that goes against the mandate, the spirit, of a non-profit society. So fine, if the board wants to be a business, making money and putting it into banks and watching the interest accumulate, then the government should take away the non-profit society status, make the board pay tax on its earnings."
It was obvious to us then that this was coming. Did the board see it? No. Did the board get taxed? But of course it did, didn't it?
On that note, we will leave you with a list of related reading -- all of which touch, in depth and detail, on the subjects referred to above.
