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Official Agenda

Forget match fixing. The BCCI's too busy with its private battle against the CBI.

By Ashok Malik

Successful businessman, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), leading citizen of Chennai, A.C. Muthiah is a man of many identities. In Calcutta on Wednesday, November 29, he indicated a new interest: jurisprudence. The cricketers indicted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the match-fixing scandal would certainly be punished but, said the BCCI chief, a "30 per cent weightage" would be given to their performances on the field.

Legal theorists would have liked to question Muthiah, who had just finished with the special general body meeting of the BCCI, attended by its 30 affiliates, on what he thought of old-fashioned equality before the law. The ever-smiling cricket official's compulsions were different though. He had just emerged from a gruelling session and his colleagues in the BCCI were in no mood to accept the CBI's report. This despite the fact that the CBI's analyses had been largely corroborated by K. Madhavan, the BCCI's commissioner and a former CBI man himself. There were three reasons for the BCCI's intransigence:

• Aside from studying the mechanics of the bookmaker-player nexus, the CBI had accused the BCCI of being nepotistic, greedy and unprofessional.

• The upcoming CBI report on the TV-rights scandal is already giving some senior BCCI officials sleepless nights.

• Muthiah had been under severe pressure from at least one senior politician as well as a princely former BCCI president to be lenient towards Ajay Jadeja.

A few days before the Calcutta conclave, the aristocratic official had told a friend at the Cricket Club of India, Mumbai, "Ajay is only a boy, we shouldn't be harsh on him." On the other hand Madhavan's assessment of the CBI findings had held that "Ajay Jadeja was not at all speaking the truth before me", had "convoluted explanations" and was "guilty of unbecoming conduct".

The BCCI's printed refutation of the CBI's attack (see box) was less sublime. The board argued it had got more guarantee money and TV rights fees for specific tournaments than the CBI had alleged. It also denied the CBI charge that "it is difficult to become a member or an office-bearer for any person even with good cricket credentials". The BCCI listed cricketers from Vizzy to Manmohan Sood who had served as officials. So had many umpires, among whom the BCCI took care to refer to J.Y. Lele.

In something of an irony-patently lost on the participants-the BCCI meeting that dismissed the CBI's work was attended by the Rungta family and by Jagmohan Dalmiya. The Rungtas' control of the Rajasthan Cricket Association was singled out for criticism by the CBI; on his part Dalmiya is in the eye of the telecast-rights storm. Conflict of interest anyone?

-with Labonita Ghosh

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