It may come as some comfort to know that at least a trace of the old cricket order will remain in the new one, finally born over the weekend in Melbourne at the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) annual meeting.
The restructuring of the game, as imagined by its three richest boards, has been formalised. The previous era ended in the course of several ICC meetings this year, amid a blizzard of lies. The Big Three lied. The small seven lied. Everyone lied about everything. It is a cricket administration thing.
So it fairly warmed the heart last Thursday when the new ICC chairman, N Srinivasan, addressed the media for the first time after taking over and, in the course of about 15 minutes of a tightly controlled interaction, was – let’s put this kindly – a little loose and easy with the truth four times. Imagine the disorientation had he not.
Wait, my apologies. They were not, strictly speaking, all untruths. One was a fine piece of evasion and another a bit of delusion.
The first was a straightforward revision of history, three questions in, about Srinivasan’s inconvenient entanglement in the Indian Premier League spot-fixing case. Asked whether he considered himself to be an “appropriate, fit and proper” person to be running world cricket, Srinivasan replied: “Actually, the court did not ask me [to step down as the Indian board head], I stepped aside voluntarily.”
Actually, the Supreme Court of India recommended that Srinivasan step aside in March. Had the recommendation not been accepted, the court would have made it binding by issuing an order. In any case, if it was such a voluntary step down, Srinivasan’s lawyers would not have twice tried – and failed – to have him reinstated.
The next was evasion. One reporter asked him whether he would act in the interests of the game globally, rather than in just the interests of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The fiduciary duties of ICC directors, who are made up of individual board representatives, has long been an unmentioned fault line within the body. The ICC requires that directors act in the interests of the ICC rather than their board – broad, selfless interest for the game, rather than just narrow self-interest.
Srinivasan’s stance on this has always been clear, never more so than in the ICC meeting in Dubai on January 29, 2013. The minutes of that reveal that the ICC ethics officer was reminding directors of this principle. Srinivasan explained that he did not agree and that his position was that he was representing the BCCI.
On Thursday, Srinivasan opened his response like this: “Cricket is a very old game. It has evolved over time. From Test cricket we went to ODI cricket, on to T20 cricket.”
Illuminating as that rudimentary history lesson was, it was not an answer. He proceeded to be particularly deft about avoiding it. He just chose to answer a question that was not asked.
Then, delusion. Does the game have an image problem at present? It is a reasonable query, even ignoring the many administrative messes and concentrating only on the growing number of corruption cases that have pockmarked the past four years.
“No,” he began and, well, the only thing left to add is that he also provided a headline: “I cannot accept that cricket has an image problem.” Maybe this is not delusion. Maybe he really feels that cricket really does not have image problems. From the gutter, after all, even the street lights begin to look like stars.
He saved the second, the best and most audacious untruth, for the end. Was there ever a possibility during this whole process that the BCCI would walk away from the world game if it did not get its way? Nope, never, the BCCI would never “have even dreamt of walking away from the ICC”, Srinivasan said.
The BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel was present. This month, he had said publicly that “India might be forced to form a second ICC of its own”. That was not a low-key slip of the tongue. Patel made the remarks to the annual convention of India’s Sports Journalists Federation.
Also watching was Wally Edwards, the Cricket Australia chairman and staunch Srinivasan partner in the new world order. In March, Edwards said there was a “very real chance” that India would walk away were their conditions not met. The England Cricket Board has also said it.
For about 15 minutes of talking, as the first words of a new beginning, that is no bad haul. Imagine, just imagine, the bounty from a full term of this leadership. At least in that respect, this new age will far outshine what has gone.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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