The end of an era

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)  has been facing severe flak right from the time the IPL first began in 2008. Over the years, there have been reports of different forms of corruption that include that of abuse, physical violence, match- fixing among many more. It all began with the ban of post match after parties where discipline of individual cricketers were  questioned. Controversy between the franchise owners and the BCCI also was witness to two teams from Pune and Kerala being axed from the tournament later on.  The IPL finally took the ugliest turn of the lot when news of match fixing surrounding over two franchises came to the fore, the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings. This was a time when IPL had reached its lowest ebb just after the money laundering scam involving Lalit Modi.   However, faith was completely lost when there was an alleged link up of the former BCCI and ICC chairman N. Srinivasan and the ongoing match fixing.

It was just recently that the BCCI in a clean-up act has decided to finally do right the wrongs and has begun by removing N Srinivasan from his designated chair within the ICC and divesting him of all decision making authority. The Supreme Court appointed Lodha Commission has already had their inspection on this particular issue and are likely to come up with a similar decision on Srinivasan fate in the next 3 weeks. However, if they were to do it first, the BCCI would completely lose its credibility in the public eye and hence in order to restore their faith this seemed to appear as an extremely timely move. The BCCI  vowed earlier to resolve  conflict of interest within the board especially if it involved personal interest. Board President Shashank Manohar has kept his word in the first very annual General meeting of the BCCI. Manohar explained that this decision of banning N Srinivasan was important because the man representing the BCCI at the ICC was banned from the original board itself due to  IPL- related controversies and it was hence, untenable for the BCCI to allow the same.  The BCCI has informed the apex court of its decision.

Well the night didn’t end there. There was bad news for others too at the end of the annual General meeting. Post the Srinivasan decision, there was also discussion on the future of team director Ravi Shastri and selector Roger Binny. The BCCI chief questioned  how  Shastri had a dual contract as team director with BCCI and also with the IPL Governing council as commentator when the team is was not playing. Especially after Shastri earns a stupendous 6.5 crore as director of the Indian team. There were further questions regarding Indian team selector Roger Binny especially on account of the fact that every team meeting has his son Stuart’s name featuring in it. Manohar suggested that it is only fair that Roger stepped down in order to dispel notions of trying favour his son. It seems clear that Manohar means business.