Coaching blues: Indian cricket team faces a tough off-field challenge at the Champions Trophy (The Times of India - 5 June 2017)

     Team India took to the field against Pakistan to defend its ICC Champions Trophy title amidst a raging controversy – over reported differences between captain Virat Kohli and coach Anil Kumble. Though Kohli has denied these reports, it must be distracting for the team how BCCI invited applications for the post of head coach just as it landed in England to play a prestigious tournament. Until then Kumble’s one-year contract was widely expected to be renewed given the team’s impressive performance under him, with five Test series wins in a row.

     This controversy raises fundamental questions about continuing lack of professionalism in cricket governance. Why did the Committee of Administrators (CoA) leave such an important decision to be made at the very end of Kumble’s tenure (which concludes with the Champions Trophy)? Perhaps the captain has expressed concerns only at this juncture but if his view is so important, he should anyway have been consulted earlier instead of creating a situation that adversely affects team morale during a very competitive overseas tournament.

     This is disappointing especially as expectations ran high from the Supreme Court appointed CoA which took over running BCCI affairs from January 30. CoA member Ramachandra Guha has resigned during this cricketing firestorm but not without raising more troublesome questions – about how CoA has been unable to resolve the sensitive issue of conflict of interest, which was critical to its replacing the established BCCI leadership. Too much of cricket administration continues to be person-specific rather than principle-based.

     Take the case of Rahul Dravid who is India A and India under-19 cricket coach who has been given a 10-month contract by BCCI. This allows him to double up as mentor of Delhi Daredevils during the remaining two months in IPL season. To secure his exclusive services BCCI would have to give him a longer-term contract and enhanced compensation, because today such services have a market that’s high-paying and global. Basically CoA needs to replace non-transparent loopholes with a holistic and impersonal approach to conflict of interest among coaching and support staff. Meanwhile, the likes of Virender Sehwag and Tom Moody have thrown their hat in the ring to replace Kumble. Competition as such is well and good. But as Justice Lodha points out, what’s unfortunate is how the atmosphere surrounding this coach selection has been vitiated.

Read More »

Players & superstars (The Indian Express - 03 June 2017)

     Ramachandra Guha’s resignation from cricket administration flags important concerns. It may not be enough

     Ramachandra Guha’s resignation letter to Vinod Rai, chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) to manage Indian cricket, is at once damning and revealing. Guha shines unflattering light on ills that still plague Indian cricket, despite the CoA being in the fourth month of its existence. The biggest issue that Guha has tackled in the letter is the “superstar culture” in Indian cricket — an equivalent of “VIP culture” in Indian society in general.

     The subject of celebrity cricketers, past and present, getting away with much, has been the big elephant in the room, spoken in whispers by Indian cricket watchers but never addressed so specifically, and unequivocally, as it is by Guha. He takes on the holy cows — Sunil Gavaskar (BCCI commentator and director of a player management company), Rahul Dravid (India A coach and IPL team mentor), Sourav Ganguly (Bengal Association’s president with media/broadcast commitments) — for blatant conflicts of interest. He cites previous communications as proof that even though the CoA members were made aware of the issue, they didn’t take any action.

     Guha points out, correctly so, that the superstar culture in the BCCI management is at the root of such conflicts of interest and lack of transparency. But why blame the BCCI and CoA alone? The SC made Gavaskar, despite his conflict of interest, the BCCI’s interim head during IPL 2014. While Guha’s letter is welcome, and the evidence it produces incriminating, will it change anything? The answer, tragically, seems “no”. The letter, in its spirit, doesn’t read different from the findings of the Justice Mukul Mudgal committee and the recommendations of the Justice R.M. Lodha panel, which led to the SC setting up the Committee of Administrators (CoA) to run the sport without the encumbrances of a reluctant BCCI.

     It had a sweeping mandate, and the backing of the court. And yet, in a matter of months, the committee appears to have mutated into a subset of the same BCCI it had taken over from. No one would be more thrilled to read Guha’s letter than the board’s old guard. The timing suggests that, for Guha, the tipping point was the ongoing Anil Kumble-Virat Kohli rift, which looms over India’s Champions Trophy campaign.

     Isn’t giving senior players the impression that they may have a veto power over the coach, Guha asks, another example of the superstar culture gone berserk? It’s ironic that the letter appears sympathetic to Kumble, who had in the past benefited from the same culture: He mentored teams in the IPL while running a player management company.

Read More »