Srinivasan, Dalmiya and the urge of playing a 'timeless innings' by BCCI politicians

The biggest loss of face was for the Maratha Warrior who apparently decided to lead the revolt, hoping his long honed political skills would unleash the tsunami that would rally the assorted forces to the cause and sweep the Chennai Super King off his pedestal. That he was the leader of the pack can be gauged from the common ethnicity of the foot soldiers – the man designated to be successor interim president, whose name was bandied about in the media for a length of time or the two officials who resigned their posts in a pre-emptive strike to exert pressure on the southern cement baron. In the event, the existing fault lines in the BCCI derailed the attempt of this alliance from succeeding in its intended task.

The inspired leak about the ICC having warned Gurunath Meiyappan about his links with unsavoury characters at the start of the IPL-6, either directly or through a senior BCCI official, was used as the last straw to break the obstinate camel’s back and reason to mount a final offensive against the BCCI chief. The story seems to have died a natural death, at least as of now, and the ICC’s clarification was surprisingly not sought or obtained on the issue.

A ‘political analyst’ among the panellists on Headlines Today that assembled to debate the developments post the Chennai denouement last evening, reiterated what I had suggested in my column last week that Srinivasan’s conflict of interest vis-à-vis the ownership of the Chennai Super Kings was winked at by the BCCI members because some of them themselves may have held stakes in some IPL teams given that the investments into them suspiciously came via the offshore route.

That said, the recent happenings in cricket suggest that it is imperative that the provisions of the proposed national sports bill, which is being stymied by a range of political bigwigs across the party spectrum, be made applicable to the BCCI regarding the applicability of the RTI Act of 2005 and the age and tenure restrictions on the office bearers.

It is this situation that allows a Dalmiya to have an indefinite innings in West Bengal (even though he has scaled the summit in the BCCI and the ICC) or an I S Bindra (former BCCI president who was outmanoeuvred of the ICC president’s post by Dalmiya) in Punjab or a Farooq Abdullah in Jammu & Kashmir or a Sharad Pawar (who like Dalmiya has already achieved it all) to intend to return to the Mumbai Cricket Association, according to media reports. This must be rectified. We need new blood coming into cricket administration too. Perhaps the highest court in the land could intervene to make the BCCI as a sporting body accountable to the public.