INDIANS BEHAVING BADLY: SPOILT RELATIONS

Once the envy of the world, relationship at an all-time low

A SHORT conversation between men who had never spoken was all South Africa needed to secure India’s backing for their return to the international fold. But now the countries are estranged as brothers in cricket.

Those few minutes on the phone also started the process of making India the moneyed monster that meddles in other countries’ cricket affairs with impunity.

But the relationship Cricket SA had with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), once the envy of administrators everywhere else, is set to dwindle even further than it has in the unseemly squabble over the itinerary for India’s tour here next season.

Haroon Lorgat, and by extension CSA, could become victims of the collateral damage Narayanaswami Srinivasan inflicts to ensure he is not again dislodged from the most powerful throne in the game: the presidency of the BCCI.

Srinivasan “stepped aside” on June 2 pending an internal investigation, since declared illegal, into alleged corruption in the Indian Premier League. But the BCCI will hold its annual meeting in Chennai on September 29, and Srinivasan looks set for a second term.

Among his enemies is Inderjit Singh Bindra, who is irrelevant to BCCI power relations but has attacked Srinivasan — and referenced Lorgat to do so.

“It is appalling that Mr Srini- vasan can even attempt to smear [Lorgat’s] good name,” Bindra wrote in an open letter to the International Cricket Council on June 26.

The minutes of the ICC’s board meeting in Dubai on January 29 record that “Mr Srinivasan requested that certain matters, which relate to the former chief executive, Mr Lorgat, be investigated by the ethics officer.”

What those matters were the ICC will not say, but there was

Lorgat is a nice gentleman, but it would be nice of him if he apologises

no probe and Lorgat did not seek another term.

Now Srinivasan has to put up with an alliance between Lorgat and Bindra, who wrote a letter of recommendation for Lorgat even as Cricket SA were wondering how the Indians would react to his appointment as chief executive.

As BCCI president, Srinivasan could deal with Bindra as he pleases. Lorgat would have to suffocate into submission. For that, he would have the support of Jagmohan Dalmiya, who is keeping Srinivasan’s presidential seat warm.

Dalmiya was president of the Cricket Association of Bengal when Lorgat declared their iconic headquarters, Eden Gardens, unfit to host a 2011 World Cup match between India and England.

“Lorgat is a nice gentleman but it would be nice of him if he apologises,” Dalmiya told ESPN Cricinfo this week.

It was Dalmiya, then the CAB’s secretary, who Ali Bacher said he called “30 or 40 times” to convince the BCCI to propose SA’s comeback at the 1991 ICC annual meeting.

By the time the SA delegation, including Steve Tshwete, arrived in London for the meeting, no such commitment had been secured.

Worse, the Congress Party had wind of the plan and there were questions to answer. That the BCCI president was Madhavrao Scindia, a Congress cabinet minister, only complicated matters.

“I told Steve he had to call Scindia,” Bacher said. “Steve spoke to him for 10 minutes. He put down the phone, put his arm around me and said, ‘They will propose you’.”

India invited SA to mark their comeback with three one-day internationals there.

“It was vital that the matches be televised in SA,” Bacher said. “Dalmiya said the BCCI did not receive one rupee from [Indian state broadcaster] Doordarshan to put cricket on TV.

“I said we would pay the BCCI R250 000 to have the matches shown in SA. Dalmiya’s eyes opened up wide. That was the start of the economic power that Indian cricket has today.”