MUMBAI: Former Australian cricketer Ian Chappell has blamed the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) for scuttling the BCCI’s plan to hold a Day/Night Test against the West Indies.
“The confusion surrounding the BCCI’s attempts to program its first Day/Night Test mirrors perfectly the state of cricket administration worldwide. The fact that cricket’s most prosperous – and therefore most powerful – administration, the BCCI, is beholden to a Committee of Administrators (CoA) is a black mark on the game,” Ian Chappell wrote in a signed column in Hindustan Times.
“To then have the CoA overrule the BCCI’s attempts to play a Day/Night Test against the West Indies on the basis that any decision should include consultation with “the players, the administrators and the fans”, is even more damning. At a time when cricket needs clearheaded decision making and long-term planning, confusion seems to be the prevalent emotion. Consider the following. Test cricket is a game in dire need of nurturing and one solution is to play matches under lights. So far the Day/Night Test experiment has proved worthwhile, but it needs the support of its biggest stakeholder. India’s current progress on programming a Day/Night Test appears to be more akin to ‘fiddling while Rome burns’,” he added.
Earlier, BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary had consulted with BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, acting president CK Khanna, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary, ex-India wicketkeeper Saba Karim, head coach Ravi Shastri and operations manager Gaurav Saxena.
However, the CoA was not kept in the loop and it did not go down well with CoA chief Vinod Rai, a report in newspaper Statesman said.
“You seem to have discussed with all the stakeholders, who in your scheme of things constitute four persons sitting in the (BCCI) cricket centre – a very misplaced viewpoint. Even if it be cricket of which all of you certainly have greater knowledge than me, (I’m excluding Diana (Edulji, former India women’s team skipper and the other CoA member), who has greater knowledge than all of you! I represent the viewing population. They are your greatest stakeholder,” Rai had said.
Rai may claim to represent “the viewing population”, but he clearly enjoys the reflected limelight that oversight over the game the country as a whole is so in love with gives him. And he obviously has the smarts to know that his churlish actions would likely invite censure.
Which explains his diversionary attempts to bring Edulji’s name into it. That he is being more than economical with the truth, Rai himself is likely aware of but, it needs stating here that Rai’s claim that the former women’s India cricketer “has greater (cricketing) knowledge than all of you” is patently false seeing as both Saba Karim and Ravi Shastri have played for the country.
