If anyone needs an example to justify why autonomy should not be given to any organization/entity BCCI is a perfect example for this purpose. They do whatever they want to without any accountability to anyone. They make tonnes of money without giving anything back to the people of this country. If they do decide to share a small little part of their spoils with other sports it is more like charity and they keep reminding us of their generosity. The worst part is that our sports ministry is a mute spectator of all this and can’t do a thing about it even as BCCI keeps bringing on national shame one after another. For two consecutive ODIs the managements of cricket control boards at Eden Gardens and now at Delhi have shown that they are an incompetent lot but the BCCI as well as the ministry are pretty cool about it. It doesn’t matter to them that abandoning a match because of a lousy and dangerous pitch is something which has never happened even in a poor country like Bangladesh.

Thats Daljit Singh for you

The case of Feroz Shah Kotla is rather curious. Here you have a pitch monitoring lot which is headed by a man called Daljit Singh who is a manufacturer of sports equipment. You might ask what kind of experience or credibility did he have for preparing the pitch? Actually zilch. Quite obviously he was appointed to give him a break and enable him to get into the circle of biggies of Indian cricket. I can’t say for sure if money was a criteria in his appointment but I do have my very serious doubts that it is. It’s always the money. Isn’t it? It was therefore not really surprising that Daljit Singh botched up big time. On top of it all the man had the gumption to blame Chetan Chauhan for this chaos. As far as I’m concerned if he was the boss of the pitch then he’s responsible. Period. That’s the way things are normally. It’s something like you have called some one over for dinner but the food was not up to the mark and you start blaming and abusing your wife for it in front of everyone. Ridiculous!! But there is one small glitch in this statement too. The man does not really agree that the food was bad. The guests were wrong to have judged it that way. He says that the food was not bad but just that that it was undercooked and that too was because of his wife err Chetan Chauhan. He goes on to add that there was no need to stop the match or in other words guests should’ve had the undercooked food. Check it out on NDTV here. Possibly, a manufacturer of sports equipment would know better than the match referee or the players including Indian players who have since endorsed this decision of the referee. And to end it all he says that let’s not indulge in blame game. Talk about sensibility! HUH!!!

Well, I’ve had a personal experience in Ferozeshah Kotla when I’d gone there to see a T20 match a month or so ago. Even after spending 4500 bucks for tickets what we got was pathetic to say the very least. For starters there is no parking facility for commoners in the stadium. You got to park at some godforsaken dingy MCD parking more than a kilometer away from the stadium and then take a cool walk with your kids and stuff. Bathrooms were so filthy that I almost puked. Seating and food too were sub standard. That was the first time I went there and I promise you it was my last. You can check about my experience here. If BCCI indeed has so much money why the hell can’t it be used to upgrade the cricket stadia in the country? Rules, they’ll say. But isn’t it cricket we are talking about over here where BCCI is supposed to be the damn custodian of the sport? If Kotla indeed loses the right to host a world cup match it would be more than deserving for this treatment. The place is just not fit for any kind of match leave aside the world cup. In fact I damn well demand that Kotla should be scrapped from all itineraries till such time they do up the damn place including the pitch.

Two known offenders

Things in the stadium are symbolic of the morass called sports in India. If any sports person of our country has done well for himself it is despite the system and not because of the system. The way our planning for Commonwealth Games 2010 has been done shows how callous and incompetent we are as far as sports in this country is concerned. The very fact that Mike Fennel had to intervene by writing to the PM was a tight slap on our Indianness, which we all wear so proudly on our sleeves and which people like Karan Johar keep flashing in their crazy movies to make money. Sports really has no future in this country. It is still trapped at the beck and call of politicians. In cricket in particular they’ve gone a step further by making BCCI autonomous which was just an excuse for escaping accountability. And they have succeeded. The players too reflect the same attitude of BCCI, holier than thou. If some players of the Indian cricket team are arrogant and keep getting into trouble it’s because they are treated as demi gods by BCCI. Have you seen any other sportsperson getting in trouble with media or any one else for that matter?

On the issue of autonomy please note that there are 64 autonomous bodies controlling various sports in the country. The autonomy of BCCI was indeed challenged by the govt but the Supreme Court gave a judgement in 2005 against the govt. So there you have it. BCCI will remain autonomous and our govt can’t do a fig about it except possibly by a two third majority of our Parliament which the judiciary cannot really over rule. But it’s not really going to happen simply because politicians don’t have the will to do it. Wasting so much time and energy over sports? Forget it, they’d say. They got better things to do in life.

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Posted on December 30th, 2009 India calling • Tags: autonomy, BCCI, Cricket, Kotla, national, shame, sport. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback