BCCCI: Board of ‘Committees’ for Controlling Cricket in India?

Both Zaheer Khan and Rahul Dravid have had to face some exceptionally tumultuous times while they played for India. They’ve had to make some tough choices, sacrifices and at times, go beyond. But what they have been subjected to in the week gone by (a little more than that for Dravid) is just asking too much.

So, Dravid is given an extended run with the India-A and Under-19 sides as a coach, only for him to be later named as a ‘batting consultant’ for overseas test tours for the Senior team. All of this while Ramchandra Guha’s allegations of conflict-of-interest loomed large.

Zaheer is also called up as a ‘bowling consultant’ for the senior side. This, in addition to, of course, naming the man himself, Ravi Shastri as India’s head coach till the 2019 World Cup.

When it finally seemed like the tornado that this entire coach-captain, Kumble-Kohli, Kohli-Shastri, Sachin-Ganguly-Laxman saga, was settling, out came the Committee of Administrators (CoA). Like a peeved relative, who wasn’t invited to your wedding party, the CoA raised questions on these appointments (of Dravid and Zak).

Mind you, all of this after the CoA quite literally ordered the BCCI to select the coaching staff for India’s senior cricket team on the morning of July 11th, 2017. Later that evening the BCCI issued a statement saying, “The BCCI announces the appointment of Mr. Ravi Shastri as the Head Coach, Mr. Zaheer Khan as the Bowling Consultant and Mr. Rahul Dravid who will be the Overseas Batting Consultant (Test cricket) for the Indian Cricket Team.”

If you think the scheme of events has meandered enough, wait as this roller-coaster ride gets worse. On July 15th, chairperson of the CoA, Vinod Rai said that the names of Dravid and Zaheer are mere recommendations to the CoA by the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC). And that “there is no such thing as contracts yet” for Zak and Dravid.

The CAC which comprises of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman was tasked with the job of selecting India’s head coach.

According to Rai, the CoA will now appoint another committee which will mull over whether the ‘consultants’ are at all needed.

The CAC which comprises of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman was tasked with the job of selecting India’s head coach

Interestingly, the CAC is miffed with the CoA as they maintain that the decisions regarding the two ‘consultants’ were taken only after Shastri’s approval.

So, in a nutshell, a Supreme Court appointed committee (CoA) has now appointed another committee comprising of acting Board President CK Khanna, CoA Member Diana Edulji, Board Secretary Amitabh Chaudhary, which will meet Shastri and decide on whether the services of Khan and Dravid are needed at all.

If, for a moment, we forget that this entire process has got anything to do with cricket, this seems like an ordinary process being followed at a public office in India. It’s sluggish, it’s confusing and it needlessly delays decisions of immense importance. All of this for want of protocol.

It is beyond any logic that names suggested by a committee which comprises of the most celebrated cricketers in the nation should only serve as an advisory to a committee which has the cricketing experience of a volleyball player. Or of anyone who has got absolutely nothing to do with the game.

It’s saddening that the Apex Court of the country needs to be in on everything that the Board does. In the process of which the Board has indeed been reduced to a public office, and that is not a good sign!

Of course, the BCCI called for this. When free, the BCCI was run like a fiefdom of whoever was heading it. But with the Supreme Court and quite a few committees on board now, things have turned around, for worse.

The Supreme Court, in its judgment in the case of Zee Telefilms v Union of India in 2005, pondered over the very question that has cropped up today.

Is the BCCI an instrumentality of the State under Article 12 of the Constitution of India?

Ruling with a majority of 3:2 against the BCCI’s status of a State or Public office, the Honourable Apex Court held that the BCCI was a “private body” discharging a “public function”.

Ironically, a little over a decade later, a committee appointed by the same Apex Court is going against the spirit of a standing precedent from the same court. The CoA was put in place to oversee the implementation of the Lodha Committee (yes, the mother Committee of all committees) reforms.

It is disappointing to see how the CoA has expanded the scope of its operations in a bid to further an end that only they seem to make sense out of.

Indeed reform was needed, and it was coming for the BCCI. But to expect a behemoth like the BCCI, with so many stakeholders, to follow a variable and complex chain of command for every operation, is like reprogramming an A-380 to fly on one engine.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Too many committees…well…