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Dhindsa has board in a tizzy

The first instalment of the drama -- some would call it farce -- was played out on July 24. When Shashank Manohar and D V Subba Rao, two of the three members of the BCCI committee drafting a code of conduct for players (the third, Ashok Kumbhat, was in hospital) met with Board secretary J Y Lele and treasurer Kishore Runta, to review the draft code before submitting it to Federal Minister for Sports S S Dhindsa for approval on August 1.

The meeting ended on an inconclusive note, and a fresh meeting was fixed, for today, to be held in New Delhi for a final review.

The scheduled meeting proved to be a washout. The officials are back in their hotel rooms, having vaguely decided that they will try and hold a meeting tomorrow.

It is not unconcern, but a touch too much concern, that is causing the vacillation. The board had, thus far, banked on its autonomous status to carry it through what is rapidly degenerating into a confrontation with the government. Increasingly, however, board officials are finding out that the ministry for sports is in no mood to let the board run roughshod -- autonomy, among other things, has been given a quiet burial.

Miffed by a feeling that various board officials have been less than cooperative with the government and the CBI during the ongoing inquiry into corruption in cricket, Sports Minister Dhindsa has increasingly been cracking the whip. For the first time, thus, the board is in the position of having to answer to an external agency -- and as a result, finds itself clueless.

The minister had asked the board officials to prepare two documents: One, a financial statement showing how the board had spent the money it had earned over the past few years, with special reference to its expenses on propagating cricket in the country (this edict owed to media reports highlighting chronic mismanagement of funds on the part of the BCCI). And the second, an action plan for the next three years, detailing how the board expected to go about giving the game a fillip, and improving its infrastructure.

Assuming with its trademark arrogance that the minister was merely making a noise for public consumption, the BCCI bent its mind to using the opportunity to further its hold over the cricketers. Thus, a code of conduct, draconian in nature, was drawn up.

The assumption was that this code could be submitted to the minister as proof positive of the board's determination to root out match-fixing and assorted other evils plaguing cricket in the country today. Unfortunately for the board, however, details of the draft code leaked out to sections in the media. The resulting hue and cry, ahead of the July 24 meeting, brought with it the realisation that the code might receive a less than cordial reception at the hands of the minister.

Meanwhile, the board was also given to understand that the minister was in right earnest about requiring those two reports. The financial report, however, is not ready yet. Quite naturally -- how does the board account for the fact that it has spent more money on meetings, drinks and other perks than on cricket coaching? As for the Vision statement, the board had, for form's sake, cobbled together a hasty document with little or no detail, thinking that it merely needed to go through the motions. At this late stage, however, realisation has dawned that a wishy-washy statement won't do -- Dhindsa is in the mood to go into great detail, and insists on satisfying himself that mismanagement is a thing of the past, and that the board will turn over a new administrative leaf henceforth.

So that is the situation -- the board now has all of Sunday and Monday to firm up the code, the financial report, and the vision statement.

Adding to its woes is the fact that Board president Dr A C Muthaiah is not part of the exercise. For the July 24 meeting, thus, while former president Raj Singh Dungarpur and Rajasthan cricket boss Purushottam Rungta were present as special invitees (the question begs the asking -- what is their locus standi, that the board felt the need for their presence in this meeting?), Board president Muthaiah was conspicuous by his absence.

Today in Delhi saw the same situation -- the officials got there in time, but nary a sign of Muthaiah.

BCCI insiders indicate that Muthaiah's distance from the board is deliberate. For some time now, he has been increasingly disillusioned by the way the board affairs are conducted, and has in fact been ploughing a solitary furrow. Thus, in the first meeting hosted by Dhindsa, while Lele and Dalmiya argued against a CBI probe (they were later to say publicly that they had in fact demanded one), it was Muthaiah who argued a case for an official investigation to clear the air once for all. And almost from the beginning of his tenure, the signs have been clear that the board president does not see eye to eye with his flighty understudy, the BCCI secretary.

Adding to their woes is the progressive hardening of Dhindsa's stance vis a vis tainted players. Initially, the sports minister had been pretty noncommittal, merely suggesting in vague terms that players facing serious allegations should consider stepping aside until the investigations are over and their guilt, or innocence, has been proven.

Increasingly, however, that stance has hardened. Dhindsa, thus, has let it be known that he will look askance if the team picked for the Sahara Cup face-off against Pakistan in Toronto includes the likes of Mohammad Azharuddin and Kapil Dev.

Initially, the board was of a mood to flip the finger, and sticking to its autonomy, to say that it would pick whoever it liked. Increasingly, though, a sobering realisation appears to have dawned on the officials -- it is all fine to talk about autonomy, but in order to send a team abroad, the board needs the finance ministry to sanction foreign exchange, the external affairs ministry to grant visas to the players and officials, and so on.

In other words, autonomy or no, the government holds the whip hand. And every indication is that it is in the mood to crack it. Hard.

Which, in turn, means much agonising for the board officials, ahead of what is likely to be a very crucial meeting with the sports minister on August 1.