What can ‘caretaker’ Gavaskar do for Indian cricket? Nothing.

The Supreme Court today announced that former India captain Sunil Gavaskar will take over as interim president and will attend to all matters related to only the Indian Premier League. All other BCCI-related matters will be handled by Shivlal Yadav – a BCCI vice-president who is part of the group that initially voted outgoing president N Srinivasan back into power. The SC’s ruling has been greeted with great joy by India’s coterie of ex-cricketers. Former India skipper Ajit Wadekar – Gavaskar’s first skipper in international cricket – was pleased because cricketers are back in the mix. [caption id=“attachment_1455289” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Does Sunil Gavaskar have the time or the powers to affect change? BCCI[/caption] “Glad that a legend like Gavaskar has been given the charge of the BCCI. Really good to see cricketers at the helm, including Shivlal Yadav. Good that he (Gavaskar) will also not lose his remuneration as commentator.” “This is a very good thing that the Supreme Court has done. It’s a great opportunity to the cricketers as cricket would be given priority in IPL whose image has taken quite a beating because of the allegations of betting, match fixing etc,” said Chandu Borde to a television channel. “Gavaskar is a man known for playing with the straight bat. There will be a lot of transparency under his guidance. He is known to have his own mind and I don’t think anyone would dare to indulge in corrupt practices with him at the helm.” Kiran More, another former cricketer who was also chairman of the national selection committee, said: “It is good. He (Gavaskar) was a player, so he knows what are the problems faced by the cricketers. He was also part of the IPL governing council so he would know about the workings of it. He was the ICC chairman (cricket committee), so he shouldn’t find the role of the president difficult.” But while India’s ex-cricketers can’t seem to stop praising Gavaskar or even Shivlal Yadav, who has also represented India – the real question to be asked is what the man in charge of the IPL can truly do. 1. Can he stop match-fixing? 2. Can he stop spot-fixing? 3. Can he order an investigation into Dhoni’s lie? 4. Can he order another probe? 5. Can he even ensure that he acts in cricket’s best interests? Gavaskar will be in charge for roughly two months and in that time, he also has a tournament to run. Just putting Gavaskar at the head of the table isn’t going to make everyone learn table manners. It also won’t change the perception of the game. Gavaskar can try and put better security measures in place to prevent bookies from getting in touch with the players. But does he truly expect the bookies to sit back and watch for an entire season? The entire might of the ICC and the BCCI hasn’t been able to control this evil. Can one man change all that? No, he can’t. Gavaskar has been part of various BCCI committees; he was on contract with the BCCI till recently; he was part of the IPL Governing Council when Lalit Modi went about creating havoc. It was also a Governing Council that in the opinion of the late MAK Pataudi, who was also a member, failed because they couldn’t check Modi. “It (the Governing Council) has been a failure certainly because we should have been more aware of what is happening,” Pataudi had said. Gavaskar was there, it happened under his watch and he was caught napping. So, relax and breathe. Gavaskar is no miracle-worker. In fact, not much has changed. Gavaskar, like Jagmohan Dalmiya, is a stop-gap measure and nothing more. If by any chance, the Supreme Court does come to any decision in the Mudgal Commission case on April 16 (the day the Indian Premier League is scheduled to begin), then we might even have the strange scenario of Gavaskar finding himself out of a job even before he has the opportunity to set anything right. This and we aren’t even getting into the matter of probe being conducted by the anti-corruption bureau against Shivlal Yadav in relation to an alleged multi-crore scam in the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA).