All eyes are now on Jagmohan Dalmiya
It may not be the ideal arrangement, but Mr N Srinivasan's decision to relinquish his duties as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India during the period of the probe into allegations involving his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, is perhaps the best that could have been extracted out of him. After all, barring former BCCI president IS Bindra, not a single member of the Board demanded Mr Srinivasan's resignation at the emergency meeting held in Chennai on Sunday. Given the fact that, for whatever reasons, Board members did not pressure him to quit and saw wisdom in asking him to merely ‘step aside’, it would have been a utopian case if Mr Srinivasan had resigned on his own. Reportedly proposed by Mr Arun Jaitley, Mr Rajeev Shukla and some other members, this middle-path solution now brings Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya back to the helm. President of the BCCI from 2001 to 2004, Mr Dalmiya is credited with turning India's top cricketing body into the monetary powerhouse that it is today. In 2006, however, he was removed from the Board after allegations surfaced of his involvement in financial irregularities during the 1996 World Cup tournament. Two years later, those charges were dismissed and Mr Dalmiya was back as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. But, irrespective of Mr Dalmiya's somewhat mixed record in cricket administration, one can only hope that he will ensure the BCCI panel conducts a free and fair probe into the charges of betting and match-fixing levelled against Mr Meiyappan. Towards that end, Mr Dalmiya’s first step should be to reconstitute the three-member inquiry commission investigating the affair. Originally comprising two retired justices and then BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, the panel now lies in a limbo after the latter's resignation this past Friday. Given that Mr Jagdale has made clear that he will not reconsider his decision, despite repeated requests from the Board to return to his position, it is now up to Mr Dalmiya to act quickly and decisively and rejig the inquiry team.
It is only after this panel is in place that the investigation can proceed into Mr Meiyappan's role in the scandal that exploded in the public arena during the sixth edition of the Indian Premier league tournament and shook people’s faith in our cricket administration. Beginning with the arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players, the scam has now unravelled to expose a nexus among cricketers, cricket officials and bookies. In the process, it has brought under the spotlight the likes of Mr Meiyappan. Not only is he Mr Srinivasan's son-in-law, he also owned the Chennai Super Kings franchise which is controlled by India Cements. Mr Srinivasan, who is the chief of India Cements, has repeatedly sought, not with credibility, to dismiss the contention that Mr Meiyappan owned the franchise. The situation may look like a conflict of interest. And yet, let us not forget that the BCCI had amended rules to allow relatives of Board members to own IPl teams. In other words, the crisis facing Indian cricket today is not just about Mr Srinivasan or the position he holds in the cricket establishment. It is about the deep-rooted rot that has set into the game’s administration. Stemming that rot, and not protecting personal fiefdoms, must be the BCCI's primary goal.