Reforms never really took off after promising start, whistleblower says
There has been no change on the ground but for the two-year suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals since the 2013 betting and match-fixing scandals that rocked the Indian Premier League, according to one of the whistleblowers on corruption in Indian cricket. ■
“It may be recalled that Justice R.M. Lodha, whose recommendations had kickstarted the reforms in the way cricket should be run in the country, had suggested about legalising betting in cricket. This had never happened and it’s no surprise that the recent arrest of a bookie has opened up a can of worms again,” said Aditya Verma, secretary of the now recognised Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB), whose Public Interest Litigation (PIL) forced the judiciary to appoint the Lodha Commission back in 2015.
The Lodha Commission, formed to restructure the functioning of the BCCI under the Supreme Court’s orders, had raised serious hopes of reforms in the way cricket is being run by the richest governing body in the game — aiming for transparency in financial dealings. The apex court had then, in July, 2016, ordered the BCCI to implement the recommendations of the Lodha Committee recommendations to the tee.
“The Committee of Administrators [CoA], which was appointed to execute the reforms under the chairmanship of Vinod Rai, had started with a lot of promise. However, nearly two years down the line, we must say that the committee had been a failure,” Verma told Gulf News over phone.
Elaborating his point, Verma said that the BCCI had been dragging their feet on a number of key suggestions for reform like the onestate-one-vote solution, the age cap of 70 years for any official and a bar on any minister or holder of a political position holding a chair. “However, with Mr Rai turning 70 years old himself, senior board administrators like N. Srinivasan, Niranjan Shah and him are on the same boat now,” he added.