dna edit: One man’s turf

The time has come for International Cricket Council chairman and BCCI president-in-exile N Srinivasan to review his association with the administration of the “gentleman’s game”. With his name figuring in the report of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice Mukul Mudgal panel inquiring into irregularities in IPL’s 2013 season, his already shaky position has become untenable. It has further damaged what little survived of Srinivasan’s credibility in the aftermath of his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan’s alleged involvement in IPL-betting and his proximity to the Srinivasan-owned Chennai Super Kings IPL franchise.

While the findings against Srinivasan were not made public, it is evident that the Supreme Court would not have found it necessary to issue notices to Srinivasan, Meiyappan, IPL COO Sundar Raman and Rajasthan Royals owner Raj Kundra seeking their responses, unless there were adverse mentions against them in the report. In its six years of existence, the IPL has witnessed several unsavoury controversies. In the past, the IPL has faced uncomfortable questions over franchise ownership culminating in the Shashi Tharoor-Lalit Modi spat over the latter’s unauthorised disclosure of Tharoor’s shareholding in the Kochi franchise and Modi’s unceremonious ouster.

Surprisingly, the Supreme Court’s scrutiny has not deterred Srinivasan from intensifying his grip over cricket. He was poised to seek another term as BCCI president at the upcoming AGM. When his son-in-law’s name cropped up, Srinivasan, as board president, appointed a two-member commission, which promptly cleared Meiyappan, the CSK, and its owners, Srinivasan’s India Cements, of any wrongdoing. Subsequently, the Bombay high court found illegalities in the constitution of this probe panel, even as Srinivasan denied any conflict of interest in his actions.

For a long time now, Srinivasan has attempted to distance himself and the CSK from Meiyappan even going to the extent of saying Meiyappan had no role in the team. However, the Mudgal panel has concluded that Meiyappan was indeed a CSK official which puts Srinivasan in the dock for falsification of facts. Clause 11.3 of the IPL franchise agreement stipulates the scrapping of a franchise if its owners bring disrepute to the sport or the league. With Srinivasan, Meiyappan and Kundra under the scanner, two of the IPL’s franchises, CSK and Rajasthan Royals, are on sticky ground. However, it is the BCCI officialdom’s response to the IPL scam that betrays a rot larger than the one presented by Srinivasan’s bluster.

While the board promptly sacked four cricketers for alleged involvement in spot-fixing, BCCI officials have failed to close ranks and act with the same speed or prudence to sideline Srinivasan until he is cleared of wrongdoing. Already, the BCCI elections have been delayed, apparently in anticipation of a clean chit for Srinivasan from the Mudgal panel. Rather than postpone the AGM as the BCCI has done now, the better course of action, arguably, would have been to conduct the elections immediately and initiate credible clean-up actions in the IPL that pass muster with the Supreme Court, government and the public.

The IPL has been an unprecedented moneyspinner for the BCCI, cricketers and corporate sponsors. But this model, predicated on intensive monetisation of cricket, is fertile ground for corruptive tendencies, aggravated by the BCCI’s secretive and autocratic ways. The BCCI boasts of a number of influential ruling and opposition party politicians on its board. While singing paeans to the need for accountability and transparency in public life, these men have hidden behind BCCI’s autonomous body status to resist bringing it under the RTI Act. Without voluntary and statutory disclosure of information, the BCCI is resembling an incestuous oligarchy, bringing disrepute rather than order to cricket.