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Fair is foul and foul is fair: The BCCI mantra to save itself

Hindustan Times | By, New Delhi
Oct 05, 2016 04:14 PM IST

Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev have been put in the forefront to defend the Board’s stand on the few recommendations they don’t want to implement.

The Cricket Board’s propaganda machinery, it seems, has gone into overdrive, using two of India’s most iconic players, along with a threat to cancel the New Zealand tour, in a desperate attempt to stall the Lodha panel recommendations from becoming a reality.

On Tuesdya, the BCCI president Anurag Thakur said that the reputation of the Board has been ruined by the freezing of its bank accounts.(PTI)
On Tuesdya, the BCCI president Anurag Thakur said that the reputation of the Board has been ruined by the freezing of its bank accounts.(PTI)

Just days before the Supreme Court was to hear the BCCI’s reasons for having defied their orders, the Board misquoted the Panel’s directive to the banks to freeze two payments made to their state associations. The Panel felt that these payments -- doles would be a better word to use -- were in contravention of their directive that bars the BCCI from taking any decision that concerns its future functioning.

The Board was quick to latch on to this missive and make it into an issue of interference into their financial independence. The world was told that since they can’t make any payments, they will be forced to cancel the ongoing New Zealand tour. This appeared a clever ploy to whip up public sympathy, as fans would get angry if the tour was cancelled. The Lodha panel nailed their lie and in any case, in the public eye the Board officials are already guilty because of their own misdeeds, that had in the first place forced the Supreme Court to intervene.

The other strategy used has been to put Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev in the forefront to defend the Board’s stand on the few recommendations they don’t want to implement.

Now Gavaskar and Kapil are two of India’s greatest players and command a lot of respect among the fans. But people also know that most of the top players in the country are on the payrolls of the Board, especially those who do television commentary. And even if the Board may not be directly paying to some of them, they can’t get into the commentary box with its Board permission. Therefore it is no surprise that a number of them have defended the BCCI on every count, be it India not implementing the DRS or other contentious issues.

If one is not mistaken, there is a policy of the Board that bars commentators from speaking on any issue that could go against its stated policy or create a controversy. Therefore, it was surprising to see Gavaskar and Kapil speak on this issue on television. The obvious inference would be that they were given “permission” to do so.

Most of the top Board officials will become history once the Lodha panel recommendations are implemented and it makes sense for them to go down fighting, since they have nothing more to lose.

As another icon of Indian cricket, Bishen Singh Bedi, one of the few voices the Board has not been able to silence, told HT: “the Board is behaving like a toddler whose destructive toys have been snatched away from him and is throwing tantrums non-stop.” He went on to add: “the rod has a role to play….sometimes!”

On October 6, it will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court has completely run out of patience and with what force it is willing to use the “rod”.

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