The skeletons tumble out of the BCCI closet

Sharad Pawar's daughter claimed a couple of months ago that her family did not financially benefit from the IPL. The bit to note there is that she did not claim her family was not connected to the IPL at all. What she said was that they did not financially benefit. i.e. their investment was a flop.

That's akin to a burglar claiming that he should have been let off since he had been caught by the police before he stole anything.

When Chirayu Amin was made the interim IPL commissioner after Lalit Modi was sacked, I wondered about the linkages between Shashank Manohar, Sharad Pawar and Chirayu Amin.

The news that Chirayu Amin was part of a consortium led by a company partly owned by Sharad Pawar & family reinforces my belief that there's a serious clean-up act needed in the BCCI.

Now, the only bit of the puzzle that's not yet evident is the fact that Shashank Manohar and Chirayu Amin have a business / family relationship as well.

'Conflict of interest' seems such an archaic term. Maybe we should just call it a 'cabal of interests'.

Louis Brandeis, a member of the US Supreme Court, once wrote in a 1913 edition of "Harper's weekly":

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

It's high time the same principles were applied to the BCCI.

It announced earlier this week that there would be no Indian participation in the cricket event at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

I've got no problems with that. The BCCI is the governing body for cricket, and it is well within its right to identify which tournaments it's contracted players participate in.

However, the BCCI then went on to clarify that the decision was taken since the schedules were made well in advance and that the domestic season would be underway.

This is where I have a problem. Somehow, it seems inconceivable that the BCCI fixes up schedules in advance or adheres to schedules drawn up well in advance doesn't quite.

After all, among other recent achievements, they've tried to tweak around with a scheduled 7 ODI series against Australia, successfully tweaked a 2 test 5 ODI series against New Zealand, agreed to a tour of Zimbabwe at short notice & urgently scheduled multiple series involving Sri Lanka.

It so obviously has something to do with the fact that the BCCI would need to be WADA-compliant for the cricket team to be allowed to play at the Asian Games. After all, if the main side was too busy, it wouldn't have been tough to put together a 2nd XI.

Labels: asian games, bcci, conflict of interest, indian premier league, scheduling, sharad pawar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:11 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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If it's a tour of Australia, there must be a selection controversy

Almost exactly four years ago, just before the Indian team left for a tour of Australia, Abhijit Kale was banned by the BCCI for attempting to bribe selectors for a place in the national team (or was it an India A side?).

This time around, with another tour of Australia coming up, another issue related to the selection committee has cropped up, this time it has to with the way Dilip Vengsarkar has been allegedly treated by BCCI administrators.

Vengsarkar has been in the news for the past month or so since quite a few BCCI officials have taken umbrage at him writing columns, and earning a living from them. This apparently violates the board's policy. The board then went one step further, putting out a list of do's and don't's, all of which were essentially to press home the fact that the BCCI executives and administrators were the bosses and not the selectors.

One of the directives, relating to being involved with player agents, is noteworthy, in that it seeks to eliminate any potential conflict of interest. Yet, it is also interesting to note that CricketNext reports that Niranjan Shah tried to get his son selected for an India A tour.

Jaydev Shah scored 255 runs from 11 first-class innings, 40 from 4 list-A innings and 86 from 4 domestic Twenty20 innings last season. The season before that was equally pathetic. He isn't a bowler either. So there's no evidence to suggest that he deserved an India A spot.

Clearly there's a conflict of interest here. The BCCI should ensure that none of its office bearers' sons/daughters/close relatives are playing for any of the first-class teams in India.

Getting back to Vengsarkar, he then promptly shot off an email to Sharad Pawar, which obviously got leaked again, just like emails tend to when it comes to BCCI matters.

The matter, at this point in time, seems to have been swept under the carpet. But I'm fairly sure Vengsarkar is just biding his time. BCCI officials have been very prompt in asking him to quit if he doesn't like the guidelines. It really is high time they got off the high horse and realized that they exist because of the game. The first thing that needs to change is the name of the board - just call it the Indian Cricket Board. Remove the Control!

But that's a bit too much to expect from a bunch of people who don't care if the Indian team plays Australia in a test match after one warm-up game. As if this wasn't shocking enough, there are indications that Cricket Australia agreed to a BCCI request to shorten a warm-up game to two days.

The game is against the Australian Capital Territory XI and there are two ways to look at it. There's not much cricketing benefit from playing an extra day against a side which plays various state 2nd XIs and so the team might as well proceed quickly to Perth, where they haven't played a test match for 15 years. The other way to look at it is that any sort of valuable match practice possible has been lost, and the packed itinerary is to blame. The series against Pakistan ends on December 12 and the first tour game in Australia is on December 20.

To make matters worse, at this point in time, it isn't even immediately apparent which quick bowlers will be touring Australia. If Zaheer, Munaf, RP Singh or Sreesanth aren't going to be fit, why bother turning up with Ishant, Irfan and Ranadeb Bose?!

Labels: australia, bcci, conflict of interest, ind v aus 2008, india, injury, scheduling, selection, selectors, sharad pawar, vengsarkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:10 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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"You're kidding me" type of post

First, Sharad Pawar is set to become the ICC Vice-President. There's obviously going to be an impact in the way he runs the BCCI.

Second, Rahul Dravid gets left out of an all-time India XI!

Third, with a lot of focus on Zimbabwe, the BCCI does what I predicted (well almost) over a month ago - it sends an Indian team to Zimbabwe. Except, instead of the main team, it sends the A-team.

Labels: bcci, dravid, icc, president, sharad pawar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:19 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Rude Aussies?



Truth? Or a case of sour grapes?

Australia won the event. India didn't make it past the first round.

Updates

The Bladder brilliantly puts it in perspective - no one died. So we shouldn't be making such a huge fuss of it.

Yes, it showed a distinct lack of grace, lack of appreciation of a host's culture and thoughtlessness towards shoving a 65-year old minister. But if Pawar doesn't want to make it an issue, why bother?

What would my reaction have been had an Indian team won a tournament in Australia and gestured to/pushed some Australian minister/Cricket Australia chairman? I'd not have cared if Aussies had called my team a bunch of Philistines. I'd just point them to the trophy we won. End of story.

Damien Martyn has now apologized. "I didn't mean to offend him and I apologise if I did so. There was nothing in it other than me trying to help him out as there was a crush of people."

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, bcci, champions trophy, martyn, sharad pawar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:02 am | Sledge/Read 10 sledge(s)
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