Old habits die hard. The old adage is particularly true of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which doesn't seem keen on mending its ways anytime soon.
Despite being nudged by a Supreme Court-appointed body and a direct order from the top court itself, the world’s richest cricket body prefers to drag its feet. At a Special General Meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India in Mumbai on Saturday, it was announced that the cricket body would file an affidavit to the judiciary, pointing out “the anomalies and the difficulties encountered” in implementing the recommendations of the Justice Lodha report.
The Lodha committee, constituted to look into issues arising out of a spot-fixing and betting scandal during the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League, had recommended an overhaul of BCCI, including changes to the sport body's power structure.
Other state cricket associations could also file separate affidavits on the report. Obviously, the BCCI is not in the mood to throw in the towel so easily.
A complete overhaul
It's not too difficult to understand why. The BCCI may complain that the Justice Lodha report is difficult to implement, but that is only because the changes it suggests would affect the very nature of how Indian cricket has been run until now. Two of the Lodha panel’s main recommendations directly affect the functioning of the BCCI – the “One State, One Unit, One Vote” suggestion would completely change existing power structures within the organisation, while the fixing of tenures for all BCCI office-bearers would leave many of Indian cricket’s most powerful men facing an undignified exit overnight.
The other problem that the BCCI faces is the paucity of time. The Supreme Court gave its stamp of approval to the Lodha recommendations earlier on February 4, even going on to say that, “If you have any difficulty in implementing it [the Lodha report], we will have the Lodha Committee implement it for you.”
In the same session, the two-judge bench comprising Justice TS Thakur and Justice FM Ibrahim Kalifulla were emphatic about the fact that they were happy with the report and that the BCCI should implement it as soon as possible. The cricket body was given a month to put the recommendations into action.
Opposition from state associations
In the meantime, while the BCCI itself has preferred to remain non-committal, the mutterings within its various state associations have been proof of the opposition that exists against the Lodha report. The Cricket Association of Bengal (headed by former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly) rejected 10 out of the 21 recommendations in a Special General Meeting in January.
The Delhi and District Cricket Administration, mired in controversy over alleged corruption, rejected most of the proposed changes, most notably the recommendation to change the “proxy voting” system (rather unsurprising as it has benefitted immensely from this system). The Saurashtra Cricket Association has also decided to file a separate affidavit in the Supreme Court against the recommendations.
Hemmed in by pressure from all sides, the BCCI may just be playing for time by filing its own affidavit in the Supreme Court. But they may be just delaying the inevitable. In the last two years, the judiciary has taken an extremely dim view of the state of affairs in Indian cricket and has not hesitated to vent its ire.
From calling former president N Srinivasan’s tenure “nauseating” to constituting the Lodha panel and giving it full powers to probe the BCCI’s affairs, one thing seems clear: the judiciary seems extremely serious about cleaning up Indian cricket. And the affidavit filed by the BCCI might actually do more harm than good – it may make the judiciary even more determined to ensure that the Lodha panel’s recommendations are strictly implemented and the BCCI is not seen to be skirting the issue. Shashank Manohar, Sharad Pawar and the rest of the powers-to-be in Indian cricket’s cosy cabal may well be living on borrowed time.