Gautam Gambhir: I have suffered at hands of corrupt cricket administrators in India
Gautam Gambhir: I have suffered at hands of corrupt cricket administrators in India
Gautam Gambhir said on Saturday that his career has been affected by corrupt cricket administrators. Gambhir, former players Ian Chappell and Bishan Singh Bedi and Justice Mukul Mudgal attended the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2015 on Saturday where they openly discussed Cricket, Indian politics and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and answered questions put in front of them. Talking about his career, Gambhir mentioned that there is corruption in the administration as well and his career suffered due to few corrupt officials. The four speakers were quite open about their opinion on some trifling issues related to modern day cricket and BCCI. READ: Gautam Gambhir meets Arvind Kejriwal to discuss financial irregularities in DDCA
Cricket is without any doubt one of the “merchandisable” options in India and according to Justice Mudgal, it is not less than an industry. “The turnover that cricket has in India, it should be treated as an industry,” Mudgal said. Talking about Indian Premier League (IPL), Mudgal said IPL’s functioning is much more organised. The topic of IPL was sure to bring in the controversy of match-fixing and it did. Talking about that, Mudgal said that the investigation had to be more precise to get rid of the negativity inside the tournament entirely but refused to talk about the names that were suspected to be involved in the action calling it ‘a confidential matter’. READ: Justice Mudgal: Former deputy CAG will look into tender process for DDCA
Ian Chappell also described his experience of coming across an alleged match-fixer and said that bookies and fixers are different. “Bookies play around with the results, but the ones who fix are crooks sitting on top,” he was quoted saying. While asked about BCCI and how they can better, Chappell mentioned, “They’ve got way too many politicians in BCCI. Cutting back on the number of politicians wouldn’t be a bad start.”
Gautam Gambhir was the only current day cricketer in the panel and pointed out many important aspects of how the present condition can be changed to add more positives. According to Gambhir, the reformation must occur in the grass-root level and only then can changes be brought. He provided the example of FIFA as they have hired many personnel to maintain the game but still there is corruption. He also opined that Shashak Manohar and Anurag Thakur are doing great as administrators and they should be given ample time to take action.
Later, when asked about the development of other sports in India, Gambhir said, “I personally feel, BCCI should consider it a moral responsibility to support other sports.”
Bishan Singh Bedi was the most active speaker of the four. He denied giving BCCI any credit saying that out of 10 he would mark the board zero. He said that players are ‘slaves of the administrators’ as they do not raise voice against any of the discrepancy happening within. He urged to form an Indian Sports Service, something similar to IAS or IPS to take care of the sports administration in India.
Some debated topics were also discussed in the summit, one of them being the use of DRS. According to Justice Mudgal, rules must be the same for all the nations and International Cricket Council (ICC) must enforce DRS in every international match including the ones played by India. Another interesting topic was the absence of any players’ association in India which all the other cricket playing giants have. The guests unanimously agreed that such an organisation is needed for the transparency between ICC and the cricketers.