BCCI - The big bad bully of cricket

I spent four years of college right at the heart of the Hindi hinterland of the country, and if there’s one lesson that I have taken back home, it has to be about the power game that Indians are so obsessed with. The rule is singular and almost ridiculously simple — if that entity called power is on your side, which more often than not comes in with a lot of money (by a lot, I really mean a lot), you can get away with almost anything in the world in this country. And it seems no one knows it better than the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The BCCI totally loves wielding the power that it possesses by virtue of being the richest cricketing board on the planet, and in the form of the International Cricket Council, amidst financially-much poorer cricket boards, the BCCI has a perfect stage to affirm, and reiterate time and again, that it’s their way or the highway. A consistent arm-twister, the BCCI loves bullying its way through important office-bearer elections, votes on the usage of technology, and pretty much everything that matters in the cricketing world.

But this time, the BCCI seems to have overstepped the line even by its own deviant standards. In a very brazen display of the clout it enjoys, the BCCI is supposed to have rigged what was meant to be an election through secret ballots without interference from the boards for selecting players’ representatives on the ICC cricket committee. An act that reeks of extreme debauchery, the BCCI, alleges a certain report, led by its secretary N. Srinivasan, literally compelled other countries to not vote for Tim May — the other candidate — as he has been a long-time critic of the BCCI and its ways. In fact, Tony Irish, the head of South Africa’s players’ union, who is also on the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, said initial voting for the post by the ten Test captains had overwhelmingly chosen Australian May, who has been a long-term senior players’ advocate, but intense lobbying by the BCCI resulted in a re-election, which the BCCI apparently rigged in Sivaramakrishnan’s favour.

It is hardly a secret in cricketing circles that the BCCI enjoys tremendous influence in the ICC’s affairs, but by having rigged an election in favour of its candidate, the BCCI has compromised on the integrity of a democratic body like the ICC, and, of course, its own reputation. The fact that the BCCI doesn’t care much about frivolities like values and integrity is well known by now, but what is worrisome is the support that the BCCI has received over the incident from many a cricket pundit across the country. A certain well-known cricket writer and commentator of considerable repute even gave legitimacy to the BCCI’s action by invoking examples from history about how the western world has always used its power and clout to influence important elections and judgements. While the argument that organisations and countries all over the world act according to their self–interests is more than genuine, the statement is undoubtedly, and rather ominously, coated with a tit-for-tat attitude, which spells dangerously for the health of cricket. In fact, there seems to be, of late, an almost absolute intolerance in the ranks of the BCCI for opinions that don’t gel with their scheme of things. Not too long ago, an ex-Indian cricketer and very vocal supporter of the BCCI’s power politics-based policies vociferously, and in a rather uncivil fashion, accused a former English captain of being jealous of the IPL’s success. His fault was that he didn’t think too highly of the BCCI’s reluctance to make use of more technology in the game. Of course, it makes perfect sense that the BCCI has astutely stood against the DRS, for cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar are known to be not such big fans of the DRS system, and it is more than justifiable for the BCCI to safeguard its player’s interest, but then to be completely dismissive of somebody else’s opinion doesn’t augur very well too.

The ICC has, meanwhile, set up an independent enquiry committee to probe the alleged rigging by the BCCI, but the BCCI will most definitely get away once again. The IPL shall ensure it will. But perhaps, the BCCI should step down a little, take it easy, and stop its perpetual bully act, and for the sake of the great game, let not governance in cricket resemble governance in our country.