BCCI will most likely use Lodha Panel report to settle scores and little else

The BCCI currently resembles a blind man throwing darts at a board and hoping some of them hit the target and stick. That the board has no idea how to respond too the findings of the Lodha Committee is clear from their decision to set up a sub-committee of a sub-committee to spend six weeks considering the report and deciding what to do about it. More worryingly for fans of Indian cricket, some of the suggestions that have leaked to the media show the board continues to be a divided house. And a divided house cannot stand. [caption id=“attachment_2352096” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of BCCI General Secretary Anurag Thakur. Photo: BCCI[/caption] The board has been split ever since N Srinivasan took over in 2011 and set about consolidating power in his hands. The current standoff appears to be between those who wish to deal him a grievous blow by getting rid of the Chennai Super Kings and those who wish to prevent that from happening. Let’s consider some of the proposals that have emerged in public. Among them is the idea that the board will run CSK and Rajasthan Royals for two years. Those who proposed it already appear to have forgotten the Supreme Court’s ruling on conflict of interest that led to the removal of Srinivasan as BCCI president earlier this year. IF Srinivasan couldn’t be involved with a team even indirectly, for the board to directly run two teams would likely be in contempt of the Supreme Court. Another suggestion was to offload the teams to a firm such as KMPG or Deloitte and let them run it. Why an accounting and management consultancy firm with no expertise in running sports franchises would want to take the teams over is the obvious question. The second is how would they pay the players and other team expenses? They aren’t going spend their own money out of the goodness of their hearts. Supposedly the BCCI would pay them but then under whose authority would they make decisions? What if KPMG decided Dhoni was too expensive and should be traded from CSK? Or not retained for the auction? Would the BCCI stand by and let them take such a decision? And how would either firm prevent conflict of interest allegations if it was running both teams? The cause of the players that Ravi Shastri and Rajiv Shukla are championing is another example of the hyprocisy that runs rampant in the BCCI. As Ajay Shirke pointedly asked, according to the Indian Express, why did they not protest when Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Pune Warriors were sent to the scrap heap? Neither Shukla or Shastri uttered one word in support of the players then. Going further back, not a cheap was heard when the BCCI decided to terminate Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab in 2010 (though they failed to do so)? In those cases, it appears the players were expendable (after all, none of them were named Mahendra Singh Dhoni). What Shirke and board secretary Anurag Thakur want is for CSK and RR to be terminated and fresh auctions held for two new teams. The advantage of this course of action would be to remove Srinivasan completely from the IPL and render him, temporarily at least, a non-entity within the board. Even the members of the four-person panel set-up to examine the Lodha Committee report isn’t united. Thakur wanted CSK and RR to go. Shukla did not. Anirudh Chaudhry, the BCCI treasurer, was the Srinivasan camp’s candidate, so his loyalties presumably lie in keeping CSK alive. The wild card here is Sourav Ganguly, who is a confidante of board president Jagmohan Dalmiya. Ganguly has no ties to the Srinivasan regime and could choose to align himself with Thakur. Then there’s the curious case of Sundar Raman, the IPL’s chief operating officer. Raman is under investigation by the Lodha committee but the BCCI still saw fit to include him at the IPL Governing Counci meeting on 19 July. That Raman has not been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation tells you how seriously the board takes the investigation and the demands that it needs to clean up its act. Such details have always only mattered when it comes to players, never officials. It appears this situation will be used as another attempt to settle scores under the guise of doing what’s best for the game rather than a genuine interest in bringing the sordid saga to an end. It seems no matter what threats the BCCI faces, its response is business as usual.