BCCI shown its place

BCCI's (Indian Cricket Board's) inexplainable defiance of the Apex Court's verdict of July 2016, which had approved the Lodha Committee reforms in management of cricket affairs, has come to an end. BCCI President Anurag Thakur and Secretary Ajay Shirke were sacked from their posts. This is the logical conclusion to the events as the Supreme Court had given BCCI up to last six months to reform it. Its officials adopted a hostile and adversarial approach towards the highest court of the country, desperate as they were to cling to the ‘honorary' posts they held. So much so that Thakur, a young MP with, presumably, a long political career ahead of him, may have committed perjury in an affidavit he filed. And the Supreme Court asked him why perjury and contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against him.

BCCI's officials, in private, say that it's ‘judicial overreach', but the fact is that they themselves are responsible for their troubles. Even after the Supreme Court order of July last year, BCCI's officials even provoked the Supreme Court. It is one thing to disagree with the judge, but to openly defy the highest court amounted to challenging the rule of law.

It was possible to have some sympathy for the BCCI's case, but its top officials wasted the window they had, while the recommendations were merely that, by sparring rather than engaging with the Lodha Committee. That they pursued that course of action was staggering given that the Supreme Court then made the recommendations mandatory through an order.

BCCI will now be run by a committee of administrators appointed by the Supreme Court. The defiant officials, as was expected, had to be evicted by force, which isn't ideal, but some good may yet emerge from this sordid saga. Under the guidance of the Supreme Court, BCCI might finally evolve and set parameters and standards for sports governance which India's other sports associations running much worse than BCCI could be made to adopt.