Justice Mudgal ; Corruption Cancer Infects Indian Cricket too
Flat Tack Bullies & Innocuous Trundlers disgrace India abroad, yet Again
BCCI Chief’s Son-in-law Gurunath interceded with Captain Dhoni and Raina at bookie’s behest.
Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell feels Virat Kohli should replace Mahendra Singh Dhoni as India's Test captain as the incumbent is defensive and lets the game "meander along like an absent-minded professor strolling in the park"
(After India lost the 2nd test in New Zealand after being in a winning position, the disappointed local media almost insinuated of match fixing)
The piece at the end was drafted before the release of the Supreme Court monitored report by former High Court Judge Mudgal team
There is pervasive corruption in the body politic of India, which has also reached the roots of all activities in India, including its most popular national sport cricket. Corrupt politicians dominated cricket boards of India and in states have taken it down hill in honesty, integrity and trust. It did not need a report, but it is well known as is the corruption in almost all sectors of Indian political life. There have been a few cases pending before the Supreme Court on cricket from which the players and the corrupt and incompetent administrators, mostly politicians and other hangers- on fatten on tens of billions of rupees advertisement based revenue.
This money is naturally extracted from every consumer of daily necessities and white goods, which an Indian buys. Thus, it is the money of Indians, which is being used to enrich cricket administrators and players and others, at the cost of enthusiasts for whom it has become like an addiction or religion because there is no other game where India has the kind of international standing it has finally reached. In any case Indians love complicated things and can speculate till the cows come home. If that chap was out or if this catch was taken or this ball had not missed the stumps. It is a good lazy mental exercise for Indians not known for keeping themselves fit unlike, say, the Australians, South Africans and Europeans in general.
It is quite clear that the chairman of the BCCI, N Srinivasan, who in conflict of interest owns the Chennai Super Kings and has got himself elected as the chairman of international cricket control council on the basis of 80% of revenues in world cricket coming from India, should resign. But like Indian politicians Indian cricket politicians are a shameless breed, who by virtue of political influence have occupied all sporting bodies’ top positions, some for decades and belonging to all political parties but have failed to do anything worthwhile for the sports they control.
From the contents of the Mudgal report released so far it is quite clear that the Indian cricketer, MS Dhoni, who has been a fairly successful captain of Indian X1in all formats as well as of Srinivasan owned Chennai Super Kings must resign the captaincy, along with Srinivasan from BCCI .Dhoni is also vice president of Srinivasan owned cement Company . The southern and western Mafia of Mumbai politicians control Indian cricket and billions of rupees that go with it.
The Indian public has been waiting for the cleansing of at least cricket and hopes earnestly that the Supreme Court of India will do the needful. But before that pressure should be put on the administrators of BCCI, IPL and others and tainted sportsmen be barred from any further activity.
There was a similar report about corruption in cricket in 2000 when apart from the South African cricket captain Cronie, Indian captain Azharuddin and Ajai Jadeja were found guilty along with a few other players. As the Indian politics has been criminalized, Azharuddin was elected a Member of Parliament and Jadeja, earns crores as a commentator and even played a cricket match for Haryana in the last Ranji Trophy match of Sachin Tendulkar. Even some other big-names were involved, but as happens in India, corruption is put under the blanket of fog.
Millionaire Flat Tack Bullies & Innocuous Trundlers disgrace India abroad, yet Again
Abroad, India has only one and half batsmen and ditto for bowlers.
With billions to splurge India's corrupt entrenched political class destroying the National game.
Captain MS Dhoni and his multimillionaires , pampered by the cricket crazy people of this country remain shielded because of the likes of BCCI’s chief Srinivasan and others, with south and west Indian cricket mafias now ruling the roost in India .The Indian captain has become quietly pompous and arrogant. He believes that he can do no wrong. His ponderousness and inflexibility is taken as coolness.
First take the Test matches in recent years .India has been thrashed ignominiously on tours abroad, in England, Australia and South Africa .And now in New Zealand.
Sometimes ago when the discussion was about India's inability to win test matches in the context of Sachin Tendulkar batting talents, perhaps, Gary Sobers or Vivian Richards said that unless you can take 20 wickets, you cannot win a Test match. Dhoni, coaches and the ruling cricket establishment believe that if they have poor bowling, so what, with as many batsmen as possible even ten they can win. This absurd theory has now been repeatedly exposed even in ODIs.
Dhoni is incapable of promoting himself to number four or so even after a decade in international cricket. He simply cannot face a new swinging ball on fast track. It should be clear to anyone that he learnt the elements of the game as hockey goalkeeper, and then by chance, shifted to cricket, keeping wickets. He holds the cricket bat like a hockey player. When defending a shot or giving a short pass .the right-hand is down halfway the hockey stick. When a long pass has to be made you hold the hockey stick at the top with both hands , swing and hit hard. This results in the helicopter shot. You can see these major elements of hockey in Dhoni’s cricket batting which expose his limitations as the up order batsman.
There is a case of corruption against the son-in-law of the cricket chief Srinivasan. He says that his son in law has nothing to do with the former’s Chennai Super Kings team, while the evidence is just the opposite. Srinivasan is even prepared to disown his son-in-law. There are cases against him in the industries in which he is deeply involved.
On regional nepotism, one can also see that members of the Chennai cricket team or players from South India and sometimes West India are mostly selected at the cost of even better players from North, Central and East India. Like the Hindu psyche which has no concept of conflict of interest, it is dharma to promote your own dear and near ones. At the moment the cricket administrators from South India under Srinivasan and politicians from Maharashtra deny equal rights to better players from north as Bishan Singh Bedi points out regularly .A gritty and great cricketer Mohinder Amarnath was dismissed as selector because we had faulted Dhoni’s captaincy and rightly raised concerns about many of the players of the team after it had been thrashed both in England and Australia.
If BCCI is a private organization or NGO, then it should be taxed like any entertainment programme whether it is a film or theatre or Nautanki .In fact, every aspect of life, especially political life in India has been reduced to Nautanki since jaded actors and retired cricketers easily walk into politics as members of Parliament. The suffering public with politicians being even worse elects these passé cricketers to the upper house of the Indian Parliament. It is a sad commentary on the state of Indian politics, which is being taken over by criminals and robber barons.
It should be remembered that BCCI can bully other cricketing boards because of the billions the Indian spectators and consumers provide to the game of cricket. Internationally BCCI is rich because of the rights to cover cricket matches are sold to the highest bidder of advertising companies. These advertising companies are paid by producers of white and consumer goods .The prices are increased to cater for advertising and therefore they are indirect taxes on the buyers of these commodities in India. The Indian public has a right that the money which they pay because of this extra money on advertising .It should be used for their benefit and entertainment.
The private, nepotistic, almost incestuous and totally unaccountable to anyone, BCCI has been fully infected by the cancer of corruption, non-accountability ,boorishness and brashness like the Indian polity. BCCI also has control over most forms of media, which in any case is corporatized and subject to advertisements and other goodies which BCCI can dole out to so-called journalists or rather media whores ,pressitutes, government officials and politicians. The last in any case control the BCCI.
The honorable supreme court of India, which takes suo Moto notice of many ills of the country, has been somewhat slack and ponderous in looking at the affairs of national cricket. In fact, various petitions and PILs have not been attended to as quickly as they should be. Let us hope that advocate Rahul Vohra, who is an important member of the Aam Aadmi party, going after the corrupt would also look at cricket corruption beginning with the first cleanup the Delhi cricket association, headed by a pompous BJP politician.
Let us look at the commentators who are beholden to the BCCI, beginning with one of the greatest cricketers of India Sunil Gavaskar. He is paid crores of rupees by BCCI, so do not expect any impartial critical comments from him about the Indian cricket. His commentary is okay, but Ravi Shastri also paid by BCCI tends to favour the opposite side in his commentaries. Arun Lal is worst... Gavaskar and Shastri mostly promote and recommend cleverly, Mumbai-based players. India's corporate channels go out of their way to promote even unwinnable series to attract the audience.
After the disastrous series in England and Australia last year, there was criticism of Captain Dhoni and the team by Mohinder Amarnath, a gutsy batsman of his times. BCCI, dominated by Southern and Western Indian boards of cricket dismissed him from the selection panel. After Tamilian now it is a Maharashtrian chairman of the selection board. Therefore, emerging and better players from North India are ignored and cricketers from South and West given preference. Even if they do not deserve to play in national team for tours abroad and in positions of authority in the BCCI training programs are.
Unless the vicious stranglehold of politicians over the Indian sports and games specially cricket is eliminated neither cricket nor other games will make progress.
Team Selection
It is difficult to comprehend why Pujara has been kept out of ODIs. He is solid batsman and even in test matches has scored runs at very fast rate. Pujara should come at 3 or 4 .Srinivasan and the ruling Mafia want to keep Dhoni s buddy Suresh Raina, who is just Ranji Trophy level player in ODI XI or somebody else from South or West. Dhoni and Raina have shares in a company owned by Dhoni’s friend which promotes their interests .There are similar other companies , which queer the section of the right team .
From the current crop of batsmen, it should have been obvious to anyone with any sense of cricket, that ODI should have been opened by Ajinkaya and not Rohit, who does wel on India's flat tracks, but does not have the technique, especially against fast rising ball on the body, brought up on easy paced wickets in India. In spite of weaknesses ,flat track bullies are selected and sent out who make a sorry spectacle of themselves and a laughingstock. The least that can be done is that before going out to England, Australia and South Africa , some matches must be played on fast paced pitches in India which are available or can be specially made so that the ability to play outside India can be judged. But this will expose many Indian batsmen with lucrative contracts and advertisers, their agents and their godfathers, in cricket and political world ,who will always support them. National interest of prestige may go to hell.
It is quite clear that Indian physique in general is not suited for fast bowling possibly because of a vegetarian diet. Look at the fast bowlers, which even Zimbabwe, West Indies and others produce one after another. And of course Pakistan, our neighbour .But why not Punjab .Instead of academies for the batsmen only there should be special academies for producing fast bowlers for young men from North who have in general better physic than from South.
The politicians who dominated the BCCI made sure that a competitive Indian Cricket league was demolished by fair and foul means and those who joined it were hunted and hounded ., examples being Kapil Dev , young cricketers like Rambati Naidu. It is like the ruling party which uses foul means against its rivals.
The obnoxious caste system which is so deeply ingrained in India and polity shows itself in all walks of life including games .Appointing foreign coaches the situation has improved tremendously. Before that batsmen and bowlers and fielders were considered the jobs of upper castes, OBCs and Dalits. I remember a 1950s, 60s and even later, when batsmen and bowlers paid very little attention to their fielding. In any case physical fitness is not a strong suit of Indians. Yoga and other techniques do not fully prepare the physical body for games and sports.
PS; One thought strikes me that whenever other teams are playing against India, they try to do their best hoping that somebody in the IPL franchise management will notice them and bid in the auction. For international cricketers from all around the world India has become something like a mediaeval times, a Golden bird, from which they come from all over the world to extracts their share of gold.
K.Gajendra Singh 24 Feb 2014 .Mayur Vihar, Delhi-91.
