Choudhary has politely refused to sign on letter demanding that “BCCI General Body should consider it before the final decision is taken”.
Is Vinod Rai-led Committee of Administrators (COA) unnecessarily interfering in the cricketing matters of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and not just limiting his role to implementation of Justice Lodha panel reforms?
The answer is ‘yes’, going by a letter by BCCI’s acting secretary March 6, 2018 addressed to Rai where he has hit back on the charges made by the latter of not taking stake holders (read Team India players) into confidence before deciding on day-night Test against West Indies later this year.
Choudhary has also refused to sign on the appointment of new general manager (marketing) whom Rai has appointed without consulting anyone from the 27 member units of the BCCI.
Choudhary has been opposing Rai on two accounts. One, that he has not bothered to consult office bearers or BCCI General Body before making such an important appointement. Two, the huge salary (Rs 1.65 crore per annum) will only add to huge financial burden of BCCI.
Choudhary has also reminded Rai that such a post not only hitherto non-existent but has not been recommended by the Justice Lodha panel. For the record, COA (Rai and Diana Edulji) has appointed Priya Gupta, with a newspaper background, and has asked her to join before the Indian Premier League. Choudhary has also pointed out that selected candidate’s name didn’t even figure in the initial list of candidates.
Knowing that such an appointment would be hard to justify, Rai has sent her appointment contract to secretary for his signature, even though none from the BCCI was involved in decision making process on the appointment. Choudhary has politely refused to sign on letter demanding that “BCCI General Body should consider it before the final decision is taken”.
Day-night Test, a way forward
Regarding organising a day-night Test at home against West Indies in October, Rai had shot off an email to Choudhary for not consulting COA, other BCCI officials and even the players.
Chaudhary said his decision was because of sagging interest in the five-day game. Acting secretary has rebuked Rai on the charges that “policy decisions were taken without the consent of all stakeholders”.
“I was actually only trying to take a step forward in executing a policy decision which had been unanimously taken at the BCCI Working Committee meeting held on 24th June 2016. (In the meeting) day-night matches with pink ball were introduced for the first time in Duleep Trophy with the express and stated purpose of using the said experience to have one of the home Tests in 2016-17 season converted to a day-night Test,” Choudhary reminded Rai that except India and Bangladesh, all other nations have started playing day-night Tests.
On the question of players’ body clocks to be adequately addressed before committing to day-night Test, Choudhary has shown figures of Team India’s five most busy players to prove his point.
“With the cumulative ODI/T20I/IPL figures of only five top players such as MS Dhoni — 566 (318/89/159), Virat Kohli — 414 (208/57/149), Rohit Sharma — 413 (180/74/159), Shikhar Dhawan — 260 (102/31/127) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar — 202 (86/26/90) mounting to a mammoth 1,855 matches, an overwhelming majority of which were night matches, the issue of body clocks of players is adequately addressed.”
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