A modern cricketer cannot be Gandhi
The young Arjun Tendulkar helped Mumbai Indians win an IPL match this week, causing ecstatic celebrations among former players and fans who love his father, Sachin Tendulkar. Indeed, for the 23-year-old, who has lived in the god-sized shadow of his father, this was a day to cherish — though it must be said that Tendulkar Junior is just a very average cricketer at present, bowling at a pace mid-teens in Australian grade cricket are accustomed to.
Social media, cruelly, mocked Arjun as a beneficiary of nepotism, what with his father being the mentor of the team — a case akin to a CEO dad hiring his son for the company. Some conflict of interest here. The difference is that a player has to perform on the field, his dad can’t do it for him — very different from the CEO’s son bumbling through work for years.
However, it’s likely that without his peerless pedigree, Arjun may not have even been bought at the IPL auction.
Several years ago, working on a story on conflict of interest situations in Indian cricket, one came upon the curious case of Anil Kumble, probably the greatest match-winner in Test cricket for India. At that time, Kumble was president of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, chairman of the National Cricket Academy, chief mentor of IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore, and also ran a private company, Tenvic, which was looking after the development and commercial interests of young cricketers. Two such cricketers were playing for Karnataka and had been picked up for the Indian squad.
When this writer asked him about potential conflicts of interest arising out of his several positions of power, Kumble said: ‘The positions with the KSCA and NCA are honorary jobs, and I have to look after myself. At this stage of my career, I have to do that. Otherwise, you would have to become like Gandhi and give up everything.’
The possibility of another Gandhi rising from India is very unlikely — and it’s least likely that he would rise from a group of men who have rolled in money and fame and enjoyed the best things in life from early youth.
To be fair, though, cricketers do need money to maintain their very expensive lifestyle, especially after they stop playing, match fees stop and no contracts are forthcoming. The great Sunil Gavaskar, asked if his position as a BCCI-approved commentator put him in a position of conflict of interest, told this writer: ‘There’s a conflict of interest in everything in life. If your editor doesn’t agree with a story you want, what do you do? You drop it, right? I’m exactly in the same situation with the BCCI.’ Really? Gavaskar, a hero to a billion people, was at par with nondescript wage-seekers? Gavaskar then said something that’s absolutely true, but not understood by fans, who believe that heroes are not flesh and blood but made of celestial stuff that turns them into soldiers for the country and matchless models of moral rectitude. ‘They have got to remember that achievers, like them, also have two eyes, two hands — and a stomach (to feed)!’ Gavaskar said.
Pakistan legend Wasim Akram, when criticised in his country for working in India as a coach during times of tensions between the two neighbours, shot a more colourful, very Punjabi riposte: ‘Agar meri job hai vahan par, to main yahan baith kar amrood bechun? Shall I sell guavas here?’ Akram selling guavas in Lahore or Karachi, like his maternal grandfather, is a possibility about as likely to occur as the emergence of another Gandhi.
In 2008, when the IPL came into being, a most illuminating investigation into the tournament, published with the title ‘Indian Parivar League’, revealed that the league was a band of friends, family and lackeys of powerful BCCI officials. Everyone knew everyone else. BCCI’s constitution had been amended to allow its officials to have a commercial stake in tournaments organised by it. Asked about him owning an IPL team while being the BCCI treasurer, N Srinivasan — who later became BCCI’s president before being dumped — said: ‘I don’t own the team, I’m simply a shareholder. It is India Cements that owns the team… I’m just helping India Cements where I can.’
A few years ago, when the cricket reforms suggested by the Lodha Committee had the full and active support of the Supreme Court, hopes regarding the cleansing of the system sprang to life. Hope died quickly, however, as cricket seemed to slip out of the attention of the apex court. Ramachandra Guha’s resignation as a member of the Committee of Administrators (CoA) running the Indian cricket board (BCCI), in 2017, indicted CoA of inaction over several important matters.
Guha’s letter was peppered with the phrase ‘conflict of interest’. ‘…the conflict of interest issue has lingered unaddressed is that several of the game’s superstars, past and present, have been guilty of it’, he wrote.
‘Sunil Gavaskar is head of a company which represents Indian cricketers (Shikhar Dhawan, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant and Prithvi Shaw) while commenting on those cricketers as part of the BCCI TV commentary panel. This is a clear conflict of interest. Either he must step down/withdraw himself from PMG completely or stop being a commentator for BCCI,’ Guha wrote, adding: ‘I think prompt and swift action on this matter is both just and necessary.’
Prompt and swift action against conflict of interest? No, sir.
It can be argued that since 2008, with greater availability of capital in Indian cricket, cronyism and conflict of interest have risen manifold and will continue to rise.
This is no era for Gandhi.
