In a revealing insight, former BCCI president IS Bindra has said how the Indian cricket board had always been the home to some ‘vultures’, who had damaged the reputation of the board.
The veteran administrator praised the Supreme Court’s decision to appoint a four-member committee of administrators to run the affairs of the BCCI till fresh elections are held.
Last week, the apex court named a four-member committee of administrators which will be headed by Vinod Rai, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The other three members of the committee are ace cricket historian Ramachandra Guha, Vikram Limaye, managing director of Infrastructure Development Fiance Company (IDFC) and former Indian women’s cricket captain Diana Edulji.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had removed Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke from their posts in the BCCI for their failure to implement the Lodha Panel recommendations.
“In some of my recent blogs on the state of Indian cricket, I have talked about the vultures, who have over the course of decades, specialised in bringing the governance of the game into serious disrepute,” Bindra wrote in his blog.
“I’m delighted my writing has touched such a nerve because I dedicated four decades of my life as a cricket administrator to constantly robbing these vultures of their next meal!,” he further wrote.
Bindra said the new administrators of the BCCI can learn from the past and should work for the betterment of the cricket board.
“So Indian cricket’s new saviors can learn from the past and do what millions of cricket fans want: convert Indian cricket into a force of good governance and high global standards,” said Bindra.
Recalling a couple of incidents, he said:
“In 2000, I was accused of ‘bringing the Board into disrepute,’ when shortly after former South African cricket captain Hanse Cronje’s confession, I exposed match fixing in Indian cricket. Subsequent events vindicated my courageous stand.”
“The second time was when my rivals in the BCCI managed — through political influence — to open an investigation against me for obtaining land for the Punjab Cricket Association stadium in Mohali. Fortunately for me, the CBI vindicated my position and it was upheld all the way to the Supreme Court,” he added.
“Fast forward to 2013, when Indian cricket was yet again engulfed by the IPL match-fixing controversy. At that point, as I have written before, BCCI president Narayanswami Srinivasan (Srini) should have been persuaded to or forced to resign immediately. This would have allowed a fair investigation into the affairs of his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, and also restored public faith in the game. But Srini treated the Board as his own ‘jagir’ (fiefdom) and opened the doors to court intervention in a gentleman’s game”.
Bindra also took a dig at tainted the former BCCI chief N Srinivasan.
Srinivasan had called a meeting in Bengaluru last month after several powerful cricket administrators were rendered powerless following the Supreme Court’s verdict.
“Last year, Srini was elected president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. More recently, just last month, the man who is single handedly responsible for the BCCI’s overflowing cup of woes, called a meeting in Bengaluru to ‘provide leadership’ and to look at the ‘overall interests of the BCCI’ and it’s associations,” Bindra wrote.
“Outgoing president Anurag Thakur, suddenly had a memory loss about his differences with Srini, and attended. As did former secretary, Ajay Shirke…but, it seems all sorts of unholy alliances are still possible in Indian cricket. Yet again, I call on cricket fans to be on guard against vultures gaining a back door entry into Indian cricket through their agents or proxies,” he concluded.