Does BCCI care about Indian cricket?

A small group gathered at the Gymkhana field in Secunderabad on balmy days in the last week of May to witness Hyderabad Cricket Federation (HCA) Secretary R Vijayanandia handing out letters of appointment to members of various committees.

Within hours, HCA President Mohammed Azharuddin issued a statement stating that appointments had not been completed and that he was not responsible for any commitment, promise, compensation, reward, or any other financial benefit promised in the letters. Show the immediate rip-off of Vijayanand, who said he would go with the decisions of the General Assembly, and if someone is not happy with it, nothing can be done. Don’t care that someone is his or her nominal boss.

Azharuddin and the panel he elected had won the HCA election in September 2019. Until December of the same year, there were many allegations that the trustees were blatantly violating various constitutional rules and regulations. Vivek Jaisimha, the state’s junior cricket voter, wrote to the Cricket Control Board (BCCI) ethics officer, claiming that Vijayanand intervened, questioning and blackmailing us in the names of players added to teams that don’t deserve to be there. We are helpless, Jaisimha wrote. The Ethics Officer has not yet been consulted.

Also read: Shameful neglect of the Indian women’s cricket team

But then retired Justice Minister Devinder Kumar Jain, BCCI’s first-ever court-appointed ombudsman, moves through the ice age. Rupa Gurunath was elected President of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association as early as September 2019. He is a director at India Cements Ltd., a company led by his Father and former BCCI President N Srinivasan. ICL joins the Chennai Super Kings series. And yet it wasn’t until June 3 this year, about 21 months after the election, that Jain finally found a passionate cricket fan in Gurunath Meiyappanguily’s conflict of interest.

Remember that this same involvement of the Meijapans in betting and match-fixing opened an economy-sized worm jar that eventually led to the intervention of the Supreme Courts, the disintegration of the current BCCI order, and the rewriting of its constitution. History repeats, first, the tragedy that destroyed our uncircumcised innocence and our false belief in the integrity of sport remaining, and now as a farce that hardly makes a ripple in the collective consciousness.

Also read: Test cricket slow music

You know there’s something wrong with the sport when it makes headlines not about what’s happening on the playing field, but about the shenanigans behind the scenes. In the United Kingdom Telegraph newspaper that in May reported that BCCI had not given members of the Indian women’s team a share of $ 550,000 (approximately 40,148 crore) in prize money finishing second in the World T20 Cup. This final, against Australia, was played on March 8, 2020 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where 86,174 fans arrived to watch. 14 months later, the women were still waiting for their membership fees and BCCI’s response when the news came out was Oops, forgot, pay well this week.

BCCI also forgot that at the December 2020 Annual General Meeting, it had promised to replace the suspended Ranji Trophy season for domestic players. We have set up a bureau to look at distribution methods, Secretary Jay Shah said when the issue came up recently. BCCI also forgot to pay domestic cricket organizers their eligible prizes for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, which exceeded 20, and the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy, both of which were held in January and February this year at an empty stadium.

Also read: An inning that inspired India’s greatness against the West Indies in 1971

Bengal Cricket Federation (CAB) president Avishek Dalmiyathe son of late BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya explained these late payments on the grounds that players will have to come in person to sign statutory documents, which has not been possible due to locking restrictions. These two tournaments were played in January and February; Between March 27 and May 2, there was an endless election cycle in West Bengal full of protests with crowds the size of which Prime Minister Narendra Modi cheered but denied that cricket travels personally to collect the money he owes.

Neither domestic players are still expecting game fees for their share of gross revenue from BCCI’s television broadcast revenues to be shared among domestic crickets. The norm is that the amount is paid in September of each year; however, it has not been paid after the 2016-2017 period. And not just women and domestic cricketers. Ground staff in various locations have not been paid. Elsewhere, 17 official scorers, who unexpectedly retired on the basis of those over 55, wrote to BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, asking for relief for some kind of retirement benefits to get the home fires back. They have not yet received an answer.

Also read: Lost the art of hitting against spinning

Indian test cricket Abhinav Mukund recently wrote in Cricbuzz in depth, passionately and in detail about the imitation of a domestic cricketer. Prominent sports writer Sharda Ugra broke up the numbers in the article Hindustan Times shows how BCCI could easily make all outstanding payments without undermining its bank account.

In the last week of May, as heated events in Hyderabad CA intensified, BCCI held an extraordinary general meeting, among other things, to find out how to host the rest of the IPL’s abruptly discontinued 14th edition. During the meeting, one particular association raised the issue of unpaid fees for domestic cricket. Board chairman Sourav Ganguly, a former cricketer, and vice chairman Rajiv Shukla confused the debate on the grounds that it is not on the agenda. Why not, there was a question that no one bothered to ask.

The BCCI Apex Council will next meet on 17 July. Whether the issue of outstanding payments is on the agenda is not known. It is certain that BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, its Almighty Secretary Jay Shah and its Joint Secretary Jayesh George will not be allowed to take office as their terms ended in July 2020.

Also read: Why protecting the field is important

On April 8, 2016, KK Venugopal, a senior attorney appearing at BCCI, told the Supreme Court that BCCI was a private trust and that the Supervisory Committee had no companies to intervene in its operations. Are you refusing to renew? the court had then notoriously requested, guns metaphorically akimbo.

The court now has the answer: yes. Reforms covering the shortcomings of the Supreme Court have been ousted so casually and with impunity. As of the date of this article, there are 14 petitions pending in the Supreme Court, all initiated by BCCI and / or its member associations. They all seek to dilute the constitution imposed by the court.

The most important of these appeals is the six major constitutional amendments tabled by the BCCI. The largest of these relates to the term of office of three senior staff members who, according to the BCCI, should be allowed to continue. Still, despite being the initiator of the petition, a BCCI advocate has applied for six separate adjournments in late 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.

One such suspension was requested on 16 February, leading to the outraged Ministry of Justice Nageswara Rao, who is hearing the petition alongside Justice Minister Ravindra Bhat, saying enough. We cannot continue the suspension in this way, Justice Minister Rao said when he listed the next hearing on March 23rd. He said that day that the Supervisory Committee would make a decision and not allow further deferrals. But the case was adjourned in March and then again in April, and the status quo was maintained pending a final decision by the court. We are now in June, 11 months after Ganguly and Shah’s term had officially ended.

Meanwhile, the Indian cricket calendar continues. Now that the finals of the New Zealand World Championships are over, the focus now shifts to the full series against England. This is followed by the remaining half of the IPL. We get our cricket entertainment. Meanwhile, goal scorers, field staff, domestic players and others are touring some of the players in the three-ring circus, which is the BCCI, still begging for bread. Because they have to. And the BCCI continues to delay and confuse as it can.

Prem Panicker is a Bengali journalist.