BCCI shouldn’t delay: Bedi
Former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi has said that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should comply with the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee’s recommendations without using its usual delaying tactics.
The RM Lodha Committee was appointed by the Supreme Court in January 2015 to look into the functioning of the Indian cricket board and suggested changes to its constitution.
“They have to comply with the Lodha Committee. That’s a verdict which cannot be withdrawn. It was not a suggestion by the Supreme Court, but a verdict. Supreme Court is the highest court in the country; you cannot expect the court to backtrack,” Bedi said on the sidelines of the Blind Cricket Conclave.
The legendary left-arm spinner further accused the BCCI of deliberately implementation of the committee’s recommendations. “Why has there to be the word “control” in BCCI? It should be the Indian cricket board or something else. There is no other country which uses this word with their parent body. Why do we have to control something which is all about freedom of expression?”
The cricket board has been bossing over the game, he maintained.
“In order to be a good cricketer, you need to be a good student of the game. In order to be good administrator, you need to be good servant of the game. The students are all fine but the administration is bossing over the game. The only boss is cricket itself,” he said. The RM Lodha Committee has repeatedly maintained in its report submitted to the Supreme Court that the BCCI is resisting change of the status quo.
The apex court had last year nominated a Committee of Administrators (CoA) to look after the administration of the BCCI to ensure implementation of the Lodha Committee recommendations.
The CoA is at loggerheads with the BCCI office-bearers, owing to the board’s reluctance to comply with the Committee recommendations. In the recent chapter of the battle, the CoA, in its seventh status report, had sought the removal of board’s office bearers.
NEW DELHI:
PANT SHOULD BE MENTORED
Meanwhile, legendary India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani believes that young Rishabh Pant should be monitored a bit longer in the domestic arena unlike Parthiv Patel, who suffered after being thrown into the deep end of the pool, when he was barely 17.
“Everyone is not Sachin Tendulkar, who will be a success at 16 years. He was a prodigy but that’s not the case with everyone else. Parthiv was inducted very early which shouldn’t have happened. Rishabh is talented but he should be groomed enough so that he doesn’t go the Parthiv way,” Kirmani said.