by a Thinker, Sailor, Blogger, Irreverent Guy from Madras

Tale of two Cricket Czars


If Australia (even after the recent Ashes disaster in England) are the 800 pound gorilla on the cricket field, India must be both the gorilla and the elephant in the room, off the field.

Nothing else reinforces it as much as the recent trial and tribulations of the cricket chiefs of the Indian Board and that of South Africa - N. Srinivasan and Haroon Lorgat respectively.

N. Srinivasan managed to get re-elected as President of BCCI, and looks set to keep Chennai Super Kings (CSK), his IPL franchise, safe.  This:
  • despite the alleged involvement of his own son-in-law Gurunath Meiyyappan in betting and probable spot-fixing manipulations during IPL; and,
  • in spite of a whining Cricket Associating of Bengal and other disgruntled elements egging up a fight in courts.
Haroon Lorgat, OTOH, has been eviscerated if not effectively sacked as CEO of Cricket South Africa (CSA).  To add injury to insult faces an ICC disciplinary enquiry regarding his cohort David Becker’s statement against BCCI/N. Srinivasan.

At the helm of BCCI, it took N. Srinivasan just 20 minutes to get re-elected unopposed; 4 days earlier he managed to impose a life-ban on the former IPL chief Lalit Modi - in just 11 minutes.

Supposedly at the helm of CSA, Haroon Lorgat has been ignominiously stopped from representing CSA at the ICC, dealing with BCCI, and is supposed to look after only domestic cricket activities. 

All said and done, I do believe Haroon Lorgat when he says that he is not egoistic.  Keeping in mind he was chief of ICC till a few months back, who else can swallow such humiliation and remain in office?

The most hypocritical statement ever was from David Becker, former legal counsel for ICC, and a legal advisor for CSA at present (was that a trick from N. Srinivasan’s book, Lorgat & Becker?).  Writing about the binding nature of  Future Tour Programme, Becker says, “Shashank Manohar would never have allowed it. Neither would former ICC Presidents Sharad Pawar or David Morgan."

If the primary gripe of Haroon Lorgat and David Becker is that N. Srinivasan is taking his personal antagonism towards Lorgat to extreme,
  • first by ‘trying’ to dictate who should be CEO of CSA, and,
  • finally by disregarding FTP,
then how can Becker justify pulling in Manohar and Pawar into this controversy?

Both Shashank Manohar and Sharad Pawar have been past Presidents of BCCI and this left handed way of expressing a wish for their return is even worse than the bare faced counter by BCCI on Lorgat appointment ‘We are not saying who ‘should’ be CEO, but who should ‘not’ be’!

For the present at least, this cartoon from holdingwilley.com sums it up:

BCCI-Srinivasan-Despicable

(image courtesy S. Rajnikanth @ holdingwilley.com)

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