THE TALK around conflict of interest in Indian cricket has dominated all the newspapers, news channels and every other possible medium. And with India’s humiliating 4-0 pummelling by the Poms, the noise is just about to get that much more shrill.
So this may just be the right time to look back to when all the talk of conflict of interest, and outside influence in Indian cricket, actually started.
But before we get into all that, let’s lay down the terms of engagement here. This is NOT about naming names. But about getting across the point that the problems in Indian cricket run through and through. Both cricketers and administrators are equally culpable..
To the beginning then. To the advent of the 21st century. To when Indian cricket was rocked by the match-fixing scandal. There was a need for fresh heroes.
And that happened with Sourav Ganguly teaming up with a few senior pros to change the course of Indian cricket.
But what that did was change the landscape of Indian cricket with more money coming into the sport. And that brought with it a number of overriding factors that influenced decisions off the field, which obviously impacted decisions on the field.
Just before the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the selection of the Indian team was supposedly a given. But just when the team was announced one key player missed the bus. In his place came a younger player supposedly because of his fielding abilities.
But tongues have not stopped wagging till date of how a corporate house got involved in influencing this selection.
And just a year later we had the first major scandal where two selectors were accused of asking for bribes to select a player.
Right through the next few years there was a constant whisper about how one sports management company was playing its part in ensuring that players on its roster made it to both the ODI and Test squads.
Those whispers never really died down.
When Indian cricket entered a new phase with dual captaincy and clear division of the Test and ODI squads, excitement was in store. Well there was excitement, but more off the field as well. A selection storm ensued with a player management company supposedly getting the powers that be to put a selector in his place.
The selector’s mistake? Leaving out a player from said player management company’s roster.
The storm eventually died down, but it has still not stopped that selector from claiming how he was almost done in by the management company.
It is a different matter that this selector was also supposedly in bed with another management company.
It was all wheels within wheels. But always spoken in hushed tones.
And then came IPL.
The meaning of conflict of interest changed altogether. And took on an altogether more insidious form.
Enough has been said and written about how teams were owned. It was like a motley group being the judge, prosecutor and jury. The joke was on Indian cricket really.
It was hardly a surprise that when the bubble finally burst last year, it flooded everybody’s inboxes with information. There was a bit of a mid-stream course correction.
But it has hardly made any difference to some other major conflicts of interest that continue without let or hindrance.
The BCCI abhors players’ association and will crush it at first sight. We have had three attempts in India, but each time the BCCI takes care of the `players who matter’ and the association goes back into the bag.
But little did the BCCI know that one of the lead commentators for their new baby, IPL, was also a key official for a Players Association of a major country.
There were other issues. BCCI made the players contact them directly through their home boards. The avowed objective: To eliminate middlemen.
A very noble objective indeed.
But what about key people in team staff being associated with management companies? In the case of at least two teams, players’ agents also happen to play a part in the respective team’s brains trust.
In some cases a very senior staff member also has varied interests in players’ welfare off the field.
Then of course there is one of the biggest conflicts of interest that everyone knows about, but which will never be spoken of except in hushed tones. Anyone familiar with the Harry Potter series will get the drift for this refers to ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’.
No, this is NOT about the one which involves a court case. But one which involves another senior stakeholder in Indian cricket. He is the man who is crucial to the fortunes of the national team and his IPL side.
But is it fair for him to wield so much power on and off the field?
Again, it is not the someone some might think it is. It is someone some love, some adore and some simply are in awe of.
But then this is Indian cricket where we always bark up the wrong tree. Poor Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. Their ‘crime’ pales in comparison to that of some of their more celebrated ilk.
This column is penned by an Industry Veteran who chooses to remain anonymous for reasons that it would compromise his corporate position if he were to reveal his identity. The only remit that SportzPower has given The Insider is this – that the commentary should have no compromise on fact and that the effort should be directed towards the betterment of sport and the institutions that represent sport.
