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Save the soul of BCCI

The board should have been stung by the words of the learned judges into thinking clearly, at least now

The BCCI must wake up, at least now. The Supreme Court’s observations have been growing sharper and more pointedly condemnatory as the hearings in the case involving the IPL scandals progress. The rebukes on moral and ethical grounds of the Board of Control for Cricket in India have elicited no feelings of remorse on the part of its top officials, particularly Mr Narayanaswami Srinivasan, the exiled BCCI chief on whose behalf the board has been running this extremely narrow one-point agenda of bringing him back to the helm.

The board should have been stung by the words of the learned judges into thinking clearly, at least now, about what corrective actions can be taken to clean up Indian cricket. On the contrary, the highly paid lawyers have only been arguing for Mr Srinivasan to be absolved and the names of the players involved in various scandals to be kept confidential. To date there has been no word on how the BCCI intends to act. Considering how juxtaposed the dirt has been with one particular IPL franchise — Chennai Super Kings — whose team principal has been caught betting, whose star players have been seen cosying up to this team official related by marriage to the cricket governing body ICC’s chairman and owning company managing director, who himself has been tied up in knots over conflicts of interest from the very day the IPL was formed — should give some idea of how deeply embedded all this is with Mr Srinivasan, Gurunath Meiyappan and two very prominent players of the franchise.

It is intriguing to think how a board with such classic intertwining of self-interests can ever take objective and appropriate action against those the Mudgal probe panel believes have taken the morals of the great game of cricket to its lowest depth. The BCCI, which at various times had been accused of being a quasi-government, had taken action against some players in the past. It is the current BCCI, with its IPL riches and domination of world cricket, that has come to be so morally bankrupt as to be incapable of so much as recognising the quagmire it is in and acting to save itself.

It is clear the board must now give away much of its disciplinary authority, bow to the top court and beseech it to set up a judicial commission which should be authorised to spell out against those who have been cavalier with the fundamental principles of honour that historically made cricket into a metaphor for fair play. As the court observed, it is not the individuals who must get the benefit of doubt. The BCCI can resurrect itself only if it gets over its obsession with one man and his lackey and acts to re-establish its traditions.

( Source : dc )
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