A few days ago, Mumbai Cricket Association’s ad-hoc committee banned under-16 captain Musheer Khan for three years for making obscene gestures at his teammates and bringing “disrepute” to the game.
To their credit, the ad-hoc committee conducted a thorough inquiry and even heard everyone involved in the fracas after Mumbai lost to Uttar Pradesh in the Vijay Merchant Trophy quarter-final before handing out a punishment.
But a three-year ban? There are no two ways about the fact that it is excessive.
Mind you, till 2013, the punishment for the first time dope offenders at the international level who cheat to win was just two years and has now been increased to four. Which means that the decision-makers in that ad-hoc committee either felt that Khan’s offence was equivalent to cheating to win or close to that level.
Lack of transparency
Those who have followed Mumbai cricket in the past few years are aware of the bad blood between the association and Khan’s father Naushad. And there have been many instances when the youngster’s elder brother Sarfaraz was also reported for indiscipline by his teammates.
In 2015, the Mumbai Cricket Association had withheld Sarfaraz’s match fees for the season after he made an inappropriate gesture during a Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) game while the father was banned from entering the association’s premises for a year in 2011 for a fracas with then joint secretary Lalchand Rajput.
Even if we accept that the committee’s decision making wasn’t dictated by the past and the player was rude and aggressive even during the hearing, it is difficult to justify the quantum of punishment simply because fails the oft-quoted saying: justice must not only be done, but also seen to be done.
And justice in this case should have been an punishment as a corrective measure and not as a tool to put the brakes on a budding career.
Need for mentoring
International club football, for instance, is replete with stories of players indulging in drug abuse, becoming a nuisance to the team and at times just going off the boil and getting lost in the wilderness.
As guardians of the sport, the primary responsibility of the federations should be create a mechanism to mentor these kids and ensure that their talent isn’t wasted because of the environment they grew up in or some other factors did not provide them the luxury of maturing as perfect role models on and off the field.
And this is where Indian sports federations have failed players like Khan, his elder brother and many more like them.
The general way of functioning of most federations in India is to let their decision making get influenced by the vote politics or simply making it clear to everyone concerned as to who is the boss by meting out over-the-top punishments to force the players into submission.
A similar case happened a few months ago in Kerala when the state badminton association handed a two-year ban to a player for a social media post over low prize money in state championship and overturned it after the player sent an unconditional apology. A similar drama on the action to be taken on India internationals KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya is unfolding, involving the Indian cricket’s Committee of Adminstrators.
And most of these decisions are as arbitrary as they get. Even in the case of Musheer Khan’s suspension, the ad-hoc committee haven’t referred to a rule book or any other methodical process to decide on the three-year period and has, perhaps, decided the quantum of punishment just for impact.
In all probability, the suspension would be lifted a lot earlier and Khan would return to Mumbai fold sooner than later. But one thing is clear. In handing out the three-year ban, the ad-hoc body has also been guilty of hurting the very principle of sportsmanship, a charge they have levelled against Khan in their letter.