BCCI needs to get rid of its colonial legacy of control

All the riches in the world cannot buy the Indian cricket team success at the top. A lot needs to change with the body in charge of the game in the country. (File photo)

The Board of Control was the powerful parliamentary body in Britain that was created in 1784 to monitor and direct the policies of the rapacious East India Company. Not that it changed anything for the people of India. But it allowed the vile company to continue exercising its political control over the Indian territory it had conquered, in exchange for a payment of £40,000 to the Crown every two years.

Not surprisingly when it came to administering cricket played in India, once again a Board of Control was set up in 1928 with a British industrialist, Grant Govan, as its first president. Elsewhere, the Calcutta Cricket Club was founded in 1792 in Kolkata while the Parsis set up the Oriental Cricket Club in Mumbai in 1848 and the Young Zoroastrian Cricket Club in 1850. Then in 1886, the Hindus founded the Hindu Gymkhana sports club. All these preceded the formation of the BCCI and none of them had any hint of control in its name.

Cricket was already a popular sport by then and many rich Indians loved to play the game. In fact, in 1912, an all-India cricket team captained and paid for by the Maharaja of Patiala, toured England for the first time. But when in 1926 representatives of the Calcutta Cricket Club travelled to London to attend meetings of the Imperial Cricket Conference set up in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England and South Africa, they were told to kindly come through the proper channels. Or words to that effect. In a meeting attended by delegates from Patiala, Delhi, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Rajputana, Alwar, Bhopal, Gwalior, Baroda, Kathiawar, Central Provinces and Berar, Sindh and Punjab, it was agreed that a board for control of cricket in India would be created and in December 1928 the present BCCI came into being.

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Perhaps it was necessary for the development of the game in the pre-Independence era or more likely with the British obsession with control over its territories and the activities of its people, the name had some justification. But nearly 85 years and much cricket, including two World Cup triumphs later, why would a name with clear imperial roots still be in place?

The Imperial Cricket Conference changed its name to the International Cricket Council in 1965 and to ICC in 1987. Its headquarters was shifted to Dubai from London in 2005, marking the steady decolonization of the game. In Australia, the most successful nation in the history of the game, the administrative body morphed from Australasian Cricket Council which was established in March 1892 to Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1905. But in 1973, the organization changed its name to the Australian Cricket Board and then in July 2003 it became Cricket Australia. Even in Pakistan, the Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan (BCCP) set up in May 1949 was changed to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 1994.

In India, the name could have remained an oddity, retained for its nostalgic value except that over the decades the BCCI has done everything to preserve the spirit of control embedded in it. Over the years it has remained largely an opaque body whose seemingly arbitrary decisions cannot be questioned. In a 2018 ruling the Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that “BCCI should have been held accountable under all circumstances, for any violations of basic human rights of the stakeholders”, adding “As on today there is no mechanism to question such violations, except filing a general writ petition in Constitutional Courts.”

The recent instance of many senior players questioning the selection of players for various international fixtures, as well as the controversy over the venues for the forthcoming World Cup in India, show how little has changed, with BCCI officials clearly messaging that its decisions aren’t open to questioning.

After successive losses in the World Test Cricket finals and the failure of the national team to win any tournament of note over the last 10 years, there’s much that a Board of Control has to answer for. All the riches in the world cannot buy India success at the top. A lot needs to change with the body in charge of the game in the country.

Let’s start by changing its name to eliminate a colonial mindset of control and rule.