Match Fixing or Shenanigans of a Private Club

Whoever said that IPL T20 was cricket was deluding himself. It is a private club run by quasi-businessmen, part-criminal bunch of cronies who call themselves the Board of Control for Cricket in India. After all didn’t the BCCI say in the Supreme Court on September 29, 2004, "If India plays England, it is a match played by the official team of BCCI and not the official team of India." It even said that players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid played for the official team of the Board and were not the official team of India and that "We do not even fly the national flag nor do we use any national emblem in the activities of the Board". And like fools drunk on patriotism and national spirit, we had been hailing these players and indeed the entire Indian team as national heroes and role models for our children. We must thank the BCCI for this deposition in the Supreme Court, since we can now rest easy and say that what has been shamed is not the nation but the BCCI. Thank you BCCI, I am greatly relieved. You and you alone are answerable for the ignominy that you have brought to Indians. The rest of the world, however, still thinks that you administer the Indian Cricket and not merely a private club.

IPL T20 was never about cricket. It was a grand business plan for the rich middle-aged businessmen and sidelined corporate houses, who having got bored with fake board room deliberations that stamped family decisions as corporate ones, shareholder-funded family holidays in the Alps, motion sickness in private yacht cruises, extended tours of the beaches and jungles in company of young beauties in the name of printing calendars were looking for something new and stimulating. Here comes the IPL T20, which with its artificially created yet superficial city loyalities to teams filled with foreign players, attempted to stir up new emotions that was not commercial, not sexual, not show-biz and not routine business rivalry. Yet it was all of these.

What goes up must come down. And, what goes up fast falls like a meteorite, all burnt up, causing destruction all round. In just six to seven years, the IPL, in spite of having earned previously unheard of sums for the players, team owners and organisers has shown the murkiest faces of all these and has disappointed the innocent fans no end. All those breath-taking finishes, twenty five runs an over, three wickets in five minutes, unbelievable athletic dive yet missing that catch – were they all fake and fixed?

The BCCI claims it is a sports body, yet it refuses to subject its players to WADA regulations and tests. After all when the players have all night parties after matches, dancing with starlets and models, hobnobbing with match-fixers and shady middlemen, a little bit of drug-sniffing and ingestion of performance boosters may even be essential ingredients to make the amusement complete. The players even have private fashion shows, where a little bit of frolic in the aisles provides some colour to page 3 and make for interested viewership the next day. Why spoil the fun with silly rules like the “whereabout clause”.

BCCI seeks all favours from the government – elaborate police bandobast, special public bus services to ferry ticket-buyers to the arena, uninterrupted electricity supply to the game venues even as the rest of the city swelters in unbearable heat and cheap land for its private stadia. It makes a thousand crores a year, rakes in the moolah from non-transparent awards of TV rights (remember Nimbus?), sponsorships of venues and travel and hotels. Yet, it refuses to pay income tax and claims it is a charitable organisation!

Charity begins at home. And, a happy son in law makes a happy home. The double standards of this public body called the BCCI can’t be more stark in the refusal of its President, Srinivasan to step down. Whereas, for a weaker linkage to a scandal through a nephew, Pawan Bansal had to give up his Cabinet job due to intense media pressure and a CBI onslaught on a government functionary, Mr Srinivasan obviously thinks that the post of President of the BCCI is his birthright. A Secretary level officer of the Railways was arrested and suspended on accusations of bribery (giving, not taking) just on the basis of taped phone conversations. But Mr N Srinivasan refuses to resign and the media is only fashionably irritated with him. After all, they are in the same business together – money through entertainment, sponsorship and advertisements and of course they populate same social circuits. An Ashwani Kumar had to quit his Cabinet post for a non-criminal indiscretion in spite of solid support from the Prime Minister. Such is the incessant media din that even governments yield to their rumpus. But, not Mr N. Srinivasan. Even though a close relative, his own son in law, has been arrested on charges of match fixing, the BCCI President refuses to budge and claims support of his colleagues. After all, since the Board of Control for Cricket in India a charitable organisation, minor indiscretions like match fixing must be condoned. Indeed, he must be congratulated for having constituted a committee to enquire into the matter. So what, if a country of over a billion has been cheated of their money and fun of fair game entertainment.

BCCI’s Code of Conduct and anti-corruption rules (which specifically include betting and influencing a match) applies to all players and player support personnel and provides that they would be personally liable if any acts of omissions are committed even by their coach, trainer, manager, agent, family member or guest. The Code is indeed an impressive document and compares well with the Conduct Rules applicable to government officials. But, whereas government rules apply uniformly to all levels of officials ranging from a lower division clerk to a Secretary to the government, quite obviously the BCCI mandarins think they are above the rules they themselves make. So, Mr Srinivasan has proclaimed that none in the BCCI wants him to quit. Next, we will hear from Dawood Ibrahim that he can’t quit from his perch since none in his gang wants him to go!

Sorry, Mr Srinivasan! You are neither running a private club nor a charitable organisation. You deal with public money, collected at the ticket counters, paid for by consumers every time they buy a consumer product sponsored by your organisation and your puppet players, paid through cable TV subscriptions and DTH fees and through taxes paid to the government used in facilitating the massive jamborees of cricket India. You are running an outfit that is as unabashedly commercial as any other and must play by the same rules. Please follow your own rules that lay down that indiscretions by family members will deem to have been done by an official. A government officer is suspended and a minister loses his portfolio so that impartial enquiry is carried out. You must follow the same path. Quit, so that your lackeys that pass for independent members of the BCCI, can take a view not influenced by your benign presence as the President. Yes, we assure you that once you come out squeaky clean from the enquiry, we will restore to  you the position that you think God himself has bestowed upon you.