BackThe BCCI: A cosy club
Despite all the brouhaha in recent months, the BCCI sees itself as self-sufficient and self-fulfilling
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It’s no exaggeration to describe the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as a “cosy" club when you look at the various committees announced for 2014-15 by the newly elected managing committee.
Barring the Rajasthan Cricket Association—which has been at loggerheads with the parent body for a while now—every other constituent of the 30-member BCCI has been accommodated in some committee or the other. A few in several.
This list includes the all-India universities, National Cricket Club and Cricket Club of India, highlighting how vital a vote from even a non-playing body is to the formation of the sport’s power matrix.
Because of the need to keep every association (and person, one presumes) happy, several committees are loaded with people. Having many heads does not necessarily enhance productivity; if anything, efficiency becomes suspect.
For instance, the technical committee, headed by Anil Kumble, has nine other members, including convenor Anurag Thakur, who is the BCCI secretary. But this number seems tame compared to the committee in charge of the National Cricket Academy Board (chairman M.P. Pandove, director Brijesh Patel), which has 17 members.
The museum committee, headed by Ravi Sawant of the Mumbai Cricket Association, has 18 members, but what truly boggles the mind is the marketing committee, which has a whopping 29 members, with Goa’s Chetan Desai, who lost the election for the joint secretary’s post recently, being made chairman.
Interestingly, Desai is not the only one heading a committee despite losing the BCCI election. Member of Parliament Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was upset by C.K. Khanna of the Delhi and District Cricket Association, heads the powerful finance committee, is part of the disciplinary committee and is also a special invitee to the Indian Premier League (IPL) governing council.
Indeed, the composition of the IPL governing council is deliciously intriguing. Though technically far fewer in number than some of the committees mentioned earlier (13 including Scindia), one of the members listed is “All Office Bearers of BCCI", who are nine in number, taking the total to 22.
Where the cricketing quotient is concerned, Sourav Ganguly replaces Gundappa Viswanath and joins Ravi Shastri in the council.
Ganguly’s credentials are beyond reproach. He has been an outstanding player and has shown himself to be an astute thinker of the game too, not mincing his words in highlighting the shortcomings of Indian cricket, including the IPL.
Of course, some people say there is more than just an IPL assignment where Ganguly is concerned. He is known to be close to BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya and those who have been tracking his moves closely say Ganguly is taking steady and decisive steps towards the top job in the BCCI.
But that is in the future. For the present, it is Rajiv Shukla’s reinstatement as chairman of the IPL which is clearly more newsworthy than Ganguly’s inclusion in the governing council.
Shukla, it might be recalled, was a surprise appointment as IPL chairman and had to willy-nilly quit this post two years ago when the corruption scam in the league broke and became too hot for the BCCI to handle.
Even though he lost to Anirudh Choudhary in the recent election for the treasurer’s post, Shukla can well brag that he has won. He was never happy resigning in 2013, for the IPL chairmanship is no ordinary assignment: It brings with it glamour, prestige and clout.
To add to the intrigue, Ajay Shirke, who had resigned as treasurer (along with then secretary Sanjay Jagdale) two years ago to protest at what he called the BCCI’s “poor handling" of the IPL scam, has now been accommodated in the governing council. That apart, Shirke is also chairman of the data management committee and a member of the entertainment committee.
So how does one read this? Is it BCCI give-and-take, national politics or personal rapport/equations at play?
I’ll admit to being flummoxed. It could be one, two, or all of the above: Wheels within wheels, if you know what I mean. But at the end of it all, the BCCI emerges as a body that—despite all the brouhaha in recent months—sees itself as self-sufficient and self-fulfilling.
PS: One of the four committees still on hold is to deal with “anti-corruption and security". Did someone mention irony?
Ayaz Memon is a senior columnist who writes on sports and other matters.
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