Reforming in a crisis

If you put politicians in charge of something, they will naturally and inevitably try to do things that pander to public opinion. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)""why control, pray?""is no exception. Led by one of India's shrewdest politicians, Sharad Pawar, it has sought to endorse the public perception that somehow it was their off-field earnings from appearances in advertisements that caused the Indian cricket team's shabby performance in the 2007 World Cup. Ironically, on the very day it was curbing the players South Africa lost to Bangladesh, for much the same reason as India did""over-confidence and a determined opposition. Clearly, the time that some Indian cricketers spend on ads""when there is no cricket""has nothing to do with the performance on the day.

It must also be pointed out that in the process of playing to the gallery, these political managers also often find that the genuine good which they have done has been overlooked in the din of hosannas and condemnation. Thus it is absolutely right that the BCCI wants to vet the players' advertising contracts before these are signed. After all, what sense does it make for some of these contracts to link payments to the time spent at the crease by the batsman""the longer the better? Should they not link them to the runs scored? Or catches caught or runs saved and, for bowlers, wickets taken? That, it should be noted, is what derivative betting in cricket""legal in many countries""is all about. The difference is that the rewards go to the punters. Indeed, for the last several years that is what match-fixing has also been about, not about fixing outcomes alone.

The BCCI has done three other things on the advice of former captains, all of them long overdue. Two of these have a direct bearing on how the final team of 14 is selected. One is the abolition of the zonal system, which, in practice, had degenerated into a quota system that permitted selectors representing the different zones to strike bargains over the marginal players. John Wright, the former Indian coach, has referred to this in his book. Others too have been crying themselves hoarse over this practice. The other good decision is to have paid, full-time selectors. The unpaid voluntary system, a hangover from the amateur, public-spirit thing from the days of Empire, when only expenses were paid, had long become dysfunctional. The selectors simply didn't watch enough games to be able to take the right decisions. The result of this and the zonal system taken together was that India didn't always field the best team. Selection depended on 'pull' and the clout of the companies whose products were being endorsed by the largest number of players. The third good decision is to reduce the number of teams in the Elite Group from 15 to 10 from the 2008-09 domestic season and to have round-robin tournaments. Here much will depend on how the league system is designed. These decisions, if followed up by the district cricket associations by preparing livelier wickets, will help in improving the structure and performance of domestic cricket.

In the end, two things stand out. One is Greg Chappell's statement about the BCCI that "to be like Australia, you can't work like Zimbabwe". The other is that India reforms only after a crisis.