Why has cricket been run in such an opaque manner?
Many of you may hold a degree from a reputed business school. Did you ever think you would work for the Board of Control for Cricket in India? It is the world’s richest sports body with expansive operations that could use some good managerial talent. When your son or daughter holds a career discussion with you, does BCCI figure as an option? No, it is not a generation thing, either.
It is difficult to decide who is right in the fracas involving the Kochi franchise of the Indian Premier League. In fact, it may be difficult to spot someone who is truly above board. But if you collate the facts of the case, it seems incredible that things have been like this for so long.
Sharad Pawar is for transparency. The Kochi franchise does not mind disclosing its shareholding if everyone else does. Lalit Modi has gone ahead and made public Kochi’s shareholding. Everyone else, too, is saying more or less things that advocate transparency. So why has cricket been run in this country in such an opaque manner? These same people have been running it. Looking at all the recent statements, there seems to be no reason why the shareholding of franchises was kept under wraps in the first place.
Opaqueness begins at the entry level. For some reason, politicians seem to harbor an undying love of the game. Why else would so many of them be in positions of power with BCCI and state cricket associations! The others are sundry individuals who do not seem to have a clear claim to fame, and certainly no clear reason for occupying those positions. In recent times, only Sundar Raman, the CEO of IPL, appears to be a qualified professional; he was a well-known media buyer before this.
In the short few years since information technology began to burgeon in India, it has thrown up many admirable managers and role models: Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Nandan Nilekani. But BCCI, in more than 80 years of existence, has not produced someone who could be similarly looked up to. That may be because only a chosen few manage to become a part of this exclusive club. BCCI, though, would have loved to be a “private club”, only this wish was not granted by the courts. On October 5, 2004, the Delhi High Court said that BCCI was open to judicial review under the constitution in the discharge of its public duties.
Such set-ups, which draw more comfort from familiarity than abilities, do throw up interesting situations at times. Surjit S Bhalla, writing in this newspaper in 2004, pointed out that in the preceding 11 years the liquor expenditure by the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association had exceeded the money spent by the association on cricket-related matters. The obvious question that arises is how much did these guys drink. But that should not be a surprise. The bigger question is why so little was spent on cricket.