Rahul Dravid asks BCCI for clarity on the conflict of interest issue

What’s the story?

Former India captain Rahul Dravid has taken a strong exception to Ramchandra Guha’s letter to the BCCI CEO, wherein the historian had mentioned, albeit slyly and without an explicit mention, that Dravid and others of the like have been making use of the loopholes in the BCCI’s contract system and twisting the contracts to suit their own needs.

Dravid confirmed to ESPN Cricinfo that he has filed his response with the BCCI and has asked for clarity in this regard, which is to clarify whether him functioning as the coach of India’s junior cricket teams for ten months in a year and mentoring an IPL team for the remaining two in any manner lay in the line of the conflict of interest issue.

"Yes, I have written to the CoA explaining my position and explaining the background against which this perceived conflict of interest has happened,” Dravid told Cricinfo.

“By the BCCI's conflict of interest rules, I was absolutely not under a conflict of interest. If the rules have changed midway through the contract, then I think it is unfair to criticize me for breaking the rules or twisting the rules to suit my convenience,” he added.

In case you didn’t know...

Ramchandra Guha, who recently resigned from the Committee of Administrators (CoA), had expressed reservations against the manner in which international coaches such as Dravid spent a major part of the year – ten months, to be precise – coaching their respective international sides and then sneaked in the extra two months mentoring IPL teams.

Guha, citing examples from instances observed at the National Cricket Academy, had mentioned that one of the coaches at the NCA wasn’t available with the players owing to IPL duty.

The BCCI’s contract system allows coaches to sign a ten-month-long contract to coach the senior and junior teams that generally ends in March. Thereafter, they are free to sign two-month deals with IPL franchises if they so wish to and mentor or coach those teams.

Dravid has served as the ‘mentor’ of the Delhi Daredevils for the past two seasons

Details

Dravid isn’t the only person to have signed two deals in a year, something that the cricketer was quick to point out. India batting coach Sanjay Bangar was, until recently, involved with the Kings XI Punjab as their head coach and so were the fielding coach R Sridhar and the team physio Patrick Farhat.

“My simple point is that, not only me but there are five or six of us who are in the same position. There needs to be clarity. If there is clarity, we will be in a position to take an informed decision,” Dravid said.

“It is disappointing the way this got played out in the public without much understanding of the background.”

What’s next?

The CoA, in its meeting on June 12, is expected to come up with a better framework in order to battle the conflict-of-interest issue and ensure that such predicaments do not occur in the future.

Meanwhile, Dravid’s disappointment is understandable and a cricketer of his stature should not be dragged into controversies that aren’t a product of his own wrongdoings.

Author's take

The conflict of interest issue kept aside, the manner in which things have transpired inside the BCCI's realms, right from the way the perceived rift between India captain Virat Kohli and the coach Anil Kumble has been handled, to the way Guha let go of his responsibilities citing inaction from his fellow administrators in the committee, has been disappointing.

Dravid's issues might be relevant and pertaining to a lack of clarity from the BCCI but the very fact that these issues exist conveys the fault on the BCCI's part in terms of imparting the right kind of instructions and putting in place adept guidelines that are uniform and consistent with the recommendations of the Lodha Panel.