From Indian cricket’s “superstar culture”, unaddressed conflict of interest issues to BCCI’s “insensitive” handling of coach Anil
Kumble, noted historian Ramachandra Guha has opened a pandora’s box in his resignation letter to the Committee of Administrators (COA).
Guha spared no one and questioned skipper Virat Kohli’s role in selection of coach, besides alleging conflict of interest on part of Sunil Gavaskar, Sourav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid. The letter questioned the move to give former skipper MS Dhoni a Grade A Central Contract despite not playing all three formats.
In his letter, he expressed his disgust at the “extremely insensitive and unprofessional manner” that the speculated Kohli-Kumble fallout was handled by BCCI CEO (Rahul Johri) and BCCI office-bearers (Amitabh Chaudhary).
He accused the COA of “silence and inaction”, claiming that the panel was “unfortunately being complicit in this regard.”
He recommended Javagal Srinath’s name as his replacement as a former cricketer in the Committee of Administrators.
Guha in his submission to the Supreme Court cited personal reasons for quitting COA.
He writes, “If indeed the captain and the Head Coach were not getting along, why was not this attended to as soon as the Australia series was over in late MarchIJ Why was it left until the last minutes, when a major international tournament was imminent, and when the uncertainty would undermine the morale and ability to focus of the coach, the captain and the team.”
“And surely giving senior players the impression that they may have a veto power over the coach is another example of superstar culture gone berserkIJ Such a veto power is not permitted to any other top level professional team in any other sport in any other country,” he categorically states.
In a veiled dig at Kohli, Guha writes that today, players are interfering in matters pertaining to appointment of coaches and commentators (Harsha Bhogle was removed for on-air criticism of Virat Kohli), tomorrow it may well be that they would like to have a say on office-bearers.
Taking an indirect dig at Dravid (India A coach), and R Sridhar (fielding coach), he questioned BCCI for allowing them to have IPl contracts with Delhi Daredevils (Dravid) and Kings XI Punjab (Sridhar).
Guha also had strong reservations about Sunil Gavaksar’s business interests in Professional Management Group (PMG) and his firm managing a current player — Shikhar Dhawan. He, in fact, told Rai how he had apprised them of PMG signing up Dhawan’s endorsements.
Guha then trained his gun on another former captain Sourav Ganguly, who is a TV pundit apart from being current president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. PTI