BCCI MAY NOT ADD ANY NEW TEAMS FOR 2016-17 INDIAN DOMESTIC CRICKET TOURNAMENTS

Top official cites time, venue & logistics for defying Lodha Panel recommendation

By QAISER MOHAMMAD ALI, Outlookindia.com

NEW DELHI -- The new, 2016-17 domestic cricket season is just nine days away and the BCCI is resisting the Supreme Court/Lodha Committee recommendations that seek inclusion of all the states and union territories in every national tournament.

Despite the recommendations having the Supreme Court seal, the BCCI would most likely stick to the previous season’s format for the various tournaments, it is gathered. That would mean non-inclusion of new eight state teams that till now weren’t allowed to compete in Ranji Trophy, the premier men’s championship, and six Union Territories.

The states that are not included in Ranji Trophy are Bihar, the third most populous state of India whose full membership was snatched away by the BCCI in 2001, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

The Lodha Committee has recommended that there should be a combined team of the six Union Territories from the upcoming season while the seventh UT, Delhi, already competes in all tournaments. The BCCI is opposing both recommendations.

The BCCI recently announced that the 2016-17 season would start on August 23, with the Duleep Trophy being played in Greater Noida. But the fixtures of the other tournaments, including Ranji Trophy, have still not been announced.

A top BCCI official would only say that the fixtures would be announced “soon” while indicating that the Board would stick to the old format for the tournaments for the 2016-17 domestic season.

A source, however, said that the Ranji Trophy would begin from October 6, with the newly-promoted full member Chhattisgarh being the 28th competing team. There will be a total of 124 matches, and all of them will be on 40 ‘neutral’ venues, said the source.

“The Supreme Court judgement has still not concluded, meaning it has not yet been fully implemented as we are seeking to exploit remedies in the form of a review petition and, if that fails, the curative petition. The review petition will be filed soon. While we are implementing some of the recommended reforms, we won’t be able to include nine new teams [eight state teams and a combined Union Territories’ team] in the 2016-17 season,” the BCCI official told Outlook.

“So far Bihar is concerned, the state is a BCCI Associate Member and Associate Members don’t compete in Ranji Trophy. And for the UTs, what value the combined team of Union Territories will have and what name will you give to it?” the official argued.

Asked if the Lodha Committee will have to approve the fixtures before they are released, he rather sarcastically said: “They can do anything.”

While listing the BCCI’s “practical difficulties” in including additional teams, the official cited time, venue and logistical constraints, especially when there is hardly any time left for the season to start.

“Nine additional teams in each of the four men’s tournaments – Ranji Trophy, under-23, under-19 and under-16 – would mean actually 36 new teams. Similarly, nine women’s teams in two categories, senior and junior, would mean 18 teams. That works out to a total of 54 additional teams,” he explained. “How can you add so many teams and so many matches when the time is so short. Plus, there are other problems like venues and travel that would be there.”

But the Lodha Committee would have none of it. “They [BCCI] will have to include the nine new teams. The Supreme Court judgement [in the 2013 IPL betting-fixing case] came on July 18. They have to add them, no doubt,” a source close to the Lodha Committee told Outlook.

“The BCCI doesn’t have to make those teams; the respective associations have to do that. If the BCCI is unable to create those teams, and include them in their round-robin format, clearly [administrators] they should resign, if such a small thing can't be done,” he said.

“The first question you should ask them [BCCI] is: Have they taken a policy decision to ensure that each state will have one team separately, especially when both the Supreme Court judgement and the Lodha Committee have said that they can have a single north-east team?” he wondered.

The Lodha Committee on August 9 issued to the BCCI a set of timelines for implementation of various reforms. The two important deadlines given are September 30 and October 15. There are indications that one more timeline would be issued, probably by end-September.

In its last month's judgement, the Supreme Court had given the BCCI up to six months to implement all approved recommendations of the Lodha Committee.

BCCI MAY NOT ADD ANY NEW TEAMS FOR 2016-17 INDIAN DOMESTIC CRICKET TOURNAMENTS

Top official cites time, venue & logistics for defying Lodha Panel recommendation

By QAISER MOHAMMAD ALI, Outlookindia.com

NEW DELHI -- The new, 2016-17 domestic cricket season is just nine days away and the BCCI is resisting the Supreme Court/Lodha Committee recommendations that seek inclusion of all the states and union territories in every national tournament.

Despite the recommendations having the Supreme Court seal, the BCCI would most likely stick to the previous season’s format for the various tournaments, it is gathered. That would mean non-inclusion of new eight state teams that till now weren’t allowed to compete in Ranji Trophy, the premier men’s championship, and six Union Territories.

The states that are not included in Ranji Trophy are Bihar, the third most populous state of India whose full membership was snatched away by the BCCI in 2001, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

The Lodha Committee has recommended that there should be a combined team of the six Union Territories from the upcoming season while the seventh UT, Delhi, already competes in all tournaments. The BCCI is opposing both recommendations.

The BCCI recently announced that the 2016-17 season would start on August 23, with the Duleep Trophy being played in Greater Noida. But the fixtures of the other tournaments, including Ranji Trophy, have still not been announced.

A top BCCI official would only say that the fixtures would be announced “soon” while indicating that the Board would stick to the old format for the tournaments for the 2016-17 domestic season.

A source, however, said that the Ranji Trophy would begin from October 6, with the newly-promoted full member Chhattisgarh being the 28th competing team. There will be a total of 124 matches, and all of them will be on 40 ‘neutral’ venues, said the source.

“The Supreme Court judgement has still not concluded, meaning it has not yet been fully implemented as we are seeking to exploit remedies in the form of a review petition and, if that fails, the curative petition. The review petition will be filed soon. While we are implementing some of the recommended reforms, we won’t be able to include nine new teams [eight state teams and a combined Union Territories’ team] in the 2016-17 season,” the BCCI official told Outlook.

“So far Bihar is concerned, the state is a BCCI Associate Member and Associate Members don’t compete in Ranji Trophy. And for the UTs, what value the combined team of Union Territories will have and what name will you give to it?” the official argued.

Asked if the Lodha Committee will have to approve the fixtures before they are released, he rather sarcastically said: “They can do anything.”

While listing the BCCI’s “practical difficulties” in including additional teams, the official cited time, venue and logistical constraints, especially when there is hardly any time left for the season to start.

“Nine additional teams in each of the four men’s tournaments – Ranji Trophy, under-23, under-19 and under-16 – would mean actually 36 new teams. Similarly, nine women’s teams in two categories, senior and junior, would mean 18 teams. That works out to a total of 54 additional teams,” he explained. “How can you add so many teams and so many matches when the time is so short. Plus, there are other problems like venues and travel that would be there.”

But the Lodha Committee would have none of it. “They [BCCI] will have to include the nine new teams. The Supreme Court judgement [in the 2013 IPL betting-fixing case] came on July 18. They have to add them, no doubt,” a source close to the Lodha Committee told Outlook.

“The BCCI doesn’t have to make those teams; the respective associations have to do that. If the BCCI is unable to create those teams, and include them in their round-robin format, clearly [administrators] they should resign, if such a small thing can't be done,” he said.

“The first question you should ask them [BCCI] is: Have they taken a policy decision to ensure that each state will have one team separately, especially when both the Supreme Court judgement and the Lodha Committee have said that they can have a single north-east team?” he wondered.

The Lodha Committee on August 9 issued to the BCCI a set of timelines for implementation of various reforms. The two important deadlines given are September 30 and October 15. There are indications that one more timeline would be issued, probably by end-September.

In its last month's judgement, the Supreme Court had given the BCCI up to six months to implement all approved recommendations of the Lodha Committee.

UNCERTAINTY LOOMS OVER NEW ZEALAND'S MATCHES IN DELHI

As DDCA comes to a standstill, question is: Who will organise two games?

By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, Outlookindia.com

Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium, where New Zealand cricket team's two
matches, including a One-day International, are scheduled to be played,
in September and October, 2016. Photo: Qaiser Mohammad Ali

New Delhi: The New Zealand team is scheduled to open its India tour next month with a match in Delhi, but there is a huge uncertainty as to who will organise that game — the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) or BCCI/Lodha Committee —  and also an ODI in October. No preparation for the matches has begun as yet.

The matter has been compounded as a top DDCA office-bearer has warned his colleagues against taking any “policy decisions” as that would be “illegal and declared null and void” in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement on Lodha Committee recommendations for reforms.

The Lodha Committee, which the Supreme Court has authorised to implement its own recommendations in the BCCI and its affiliated units, has announced that its role started on July 18, when the apex court delivered the judgement. Therefore, say experts, the BCCI/DDCA cannot organise international matches without taking the Lodha Committee into confidence.

New Zealand is scheduled to play a three-day warm-up match from September 16-18 and a One-day International on October 19 at the Ferozeshah Kotla.

DDCA’s other perennial problem is that its officials are constantly at loggerheads with each other in a battle of attrition, often changing sides, and pulling down their rivals.

This is starkly evident from DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan’s warning to his colleagues against taking policy decisions and DDCA general secretary Anil Khanna convening an emergent executive committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss the organisation of New Zealand matches.

Chauhan, whose designation also keeps changing between ‘working president’ and ‘vice-president’, recently wrote to Anil Khanna, saying that since several DDCA office-bearers have completed nine years in power – the maximum period permitted by the Lodha Committee — they all stand disqualified.

“As you are aware, a judgement has been passed by the Supreme Court listing various directions on the continuance of the office-bearers of the association,” Chauhan said in his letter that was copied to all DDCA directors.

“The undersigned along with many office-bearers have completed more than three terms (9 years) and the judgement of the Supreme Court is to be implemented. After the judgement, we are only ‘caretakers’ of the association and we may have to vacate the office any time. Please do not take any decisions regarding policy matters as it will be illegal and declared null and void,” warns Chauhan in the signed one-page letter.

However, Chauhan’s letter seems to have made little impact as the meeting is on. The two-point agenda is to discuss the New Zealand matches and also the scathing Mukul Mudgal Report on the DDCA’s mismanagement that he has submitted with the Delhi High Court.

It remains to be seen if Chauhan himself attends the meeting or takes a principled stand, based on what he has said in his letter, and boycotts the meeting. It will also be interesting to see how many other DDCA directors (executive committee members) support Chauhan.

Mudgal, a former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court who was appointed by the Delhi High Court to supervise international/IPL matches at the Kotla, discovered many grave shortcomings in the way the DDCA has been organising matches. After overseeing the fourth India-South Africa Test in December, the ICC World Twenty20 and the IPL this year, he submitted a stinging report.

That case, between the DDCA and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) is coming for hearing in the court on August 22. At the last hearing, the court had sought a reply from the BCCI reply on the scathing Mudgal Report on the DDCA mismanagement.

Sources said that some DDCA officials are now planning to take back the case so that they themselves could organise the two New Zealand matches.

“A certain section of the DDCA office-bearers wants to now take back case because they don’t want the Delhi High Court to supervise both matches against New Zealand. Some disgruntled elements in the DDCA have not been able to have their way or say in organising last several matches, thanks to Mudgal’s tightening of screws. If the case drags on, the court might again appoint an observer to conduct the match that would further annoy the disgruntled elements,” the source told Outlook.

“On the other hand, the DDCA and the BCCI officials have discussed, over several meetings, the possibility of an independent committee organising matches at the Kotla, following the Supreme Court judgement, especially as Lodha Committee is now effectively in control,” he informed. “Don’t be surprised if the BCCI and the Lodha Committee jointly constitute a committee to organise both Delhi matches.”

Meanwhile, former India cricketer Kirti Azad has joined issues with Khanna over the convening of the executive committee meeting. The former Delhi captain, who led the state team to Ranji Trophy title in 1991-92, has alleged “fabrication of minutes by some DDCA office-bearers” and “fraudulently prepared balance sheets” of the last three financial years in a letter addressed to Anil Khanna. Azad wants the executive to discuss those points too at Tuesday’s meeting.

Why some sports in India attract champions from the poor while others largely remain with the rich

By QAISER MOHAMMAD ALI, Outlook magazine, issue of August 29, 2016

About 22 years ago, the sports ministry had organised a big do at ­Vigyan ­Bhavan in New Delhi to present cash awards to those who had won medals in international competitions in 1993. A booklet published by the ministry for the occasion, with the names and photos of the awardees, was a classic memento from the shambolic world of Indian sports officialdom. It spelt ‘sports’, in a cute lapse into Punjabi English, as ‘supports’. And long-distance runner Bah­adur Prasad’s certificate said the Asian Track and Field Meet was held in ‘Man­ali’, the hill resort in ­Himachal Pradesh, instead of Manila!

Not much has changed in the world of Indian sport and the meagre haul at the Rio Olympics reflects it. Despite the governm­ent’s casual attitude towards sports—look only at the three-paise per capita allocation in our Union budgets—winners like Sakshi Malik and Dipa Karmakar continue to emerge from far-flung places where facilities are almost non-existent. (P.V. Sindhu is not exactly from a poor village, but badminton is perhaps the most widely played sport in the country.) And yet, there is no dearth of people who think only ‘losers’ take up sports, as they are good for nothing else.

India’s sports history is full of stories of athletes who, with their sheer will, have defied poverty and lack of access to infrastructure and incentives to achieve glory almost sin­gle-handedly. Boxer Kaur Singh’s parents were poor farmers in Punjab’s Khanal Khurd village. Boxer Dingko Singh from the Indian navy grew up in an orphanage in Imphal. Boxer Mary Kom’s parents were farm labourers in Kangathei village of Manipur’s Churachandpur district. Asian Games gold medal-winning athlete Preja Sridaran’s mother was a domestic help and long-distance runner Gulab Chand came from a family of poor labourers in Varanasi. Youngsters brought up in economic hardship make up most of the Indian contingent to Rio, with only the fire in their bellies taking them to international arenas.

“Only sons and daughters of the poor can exert as much as excellence in athletics demands. Children of the rich, in contrast, play games such as golf and badminton,” says Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, who came fifth in the 110 m hurdles at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. “There’s no facility at the grassroots level for Indian sportspersons. So, all the credit for individuals who make it big despite their poor background goes to their parents and teachers.” Agrees former India hockey player and coach Joaquim Martin Carvalho, who adds, “Athletes have done their best at Rio Olympics against all odds. Abhinav Bindra, for example, won an Olympic gold in London, 2012, despite the system, not because of it.”

Government funding was not enough, so Abhinav had to spend money from his own pocket, which is possible only for those who come from relatively affluent families like his. He hired a personal coach and trained in a foreign country. Dipa Karmakar, on the other hand, had to fight tremendous odds in her ramshackle gym in Agartala. The class divide in Indian sports is stark, and it runs across sports.

In cricket, most pace bowlers come from middle- or lower-middle-class background. Former India and Delhi pacer Atul Wassan is an exception. He says he comes from an “air-conditioned background” and still sweated it out under the sun. So, our sportspersons have to have that extra grit as compared to international athletes.

“If some athletes are performing well, it is only incidental and not a reflection of planned growth,” says former chief of India Boxing Federation Ashok K. Mattoo. “It is only because of their own determination. If someone really wants to excel, they start from home, where support never reaches. Thankfully, our children have the confidence that, if supported, they can move forward. The ministry looks at sports only from an ­administrative point of view.”

Bahadur Prasad, from Bilauwa village of UP’s Mau district, is an example of people from small villages carving a niche. His parents never went to school and when he joined the Provincial Armed Constabulary as a constable in 1985-86, his monthly salary was Rs 255. He went on to become the Asian champion in 1,500 m and 5,000 m events.

“In track and field, about 95 per cent athletes, whether it is P.T. Usha, Shiny Wilson or Gulab Chand, come from poor, hard-working families in the villages,” he says. Most of the stadia and training facilities are in or around the big cities. Lack of governmental support where it is most wanted and where it will be most effective is a key factor behind this debilitating environment. “The Sports Authority of India and the states are providing support, but very nominal. They talk big but their facilities hardly reach the athletes,” says V. Sreenivasan, husband of P.T. Usha.

Pyari Xaxa and Sasmita Malik of the Indian women’s football team would rea­dily agree. Pyari, 19, who won the All India Football Federation’s ‘Emerging Footballer’ award for 2015, is a 19-­year-old Adivasi girl from Jhartarang vill­age (25 km from Rourkela in Orissa) who travels eight kilometres every day—2 km on her bicycle and the rest on a bus—for her football practice. Her father, who worked as a guard, died 16 years ago, and both her brothers work as labourers. Sasmita, who comes from Aul village in the state’s Kendrapara district, is the daughter of a junior clerk in the railways.

Her father works extra hours as a plumber to make ends meet.
“If we focus more at the grassroot level, we may start getting results,” says Mohammed S. Jabbar, a former Indian women’s football coach who groomed Pyari and Sasmita.

Michael Ferreira, several times world champion in billiards, points to the low sports budget. “Peanuts, sir, peanuts,” he says. “Definitely, we have to increase our sports budget. And we have to get rid of the bureaucratic control of sporting institutions. Give the administration to people like Sebastian Coe of England, president of the world athletics body, who know sports.”

For 2016-17, the Centre allocated Rs 1,592 crore for sports, up by only Rs 50 crore from the previous year (the defence budget went up a whopping 13.1 per cent). That’s what makes the princely sum of three paise per capita, while the US spends the equivalent of Rs 27. “The government contributes almost nothing,” says Randhawa. “Unless sports makes it to the government’s priority list, things are unlikely to change in my lifetime.”

Ferreira blames the media and the corporate world too for the mess. “We encourage just one sport, cricket. This has always been my complaint,” he says. So, what is the way out? “I do foresee a change, but not in the near future. It might take another five to 10 years for our thinking to change.” Ferreira’s optimism is touching, but soon we will all be cursing the athletes who went to Rio and came back with so few medals. We will be lamenting how we don’t have the ‘sporting spirit’ in us, and once again, a whole lot of talented, unsung sportspersons will go back to their villages of dark poverty.