Former cricketers are learning to grapple every day with increasing criticism aimed at their dual duties in a strong media presence as voices of cricket and a role in administration, selection and coaching. The fact that they have made a virtual monopoly of the electronic media puts them in direct conflict with their other aims in promoting cricket as selectors, consultants to coaching schemes and even player management.
A leading example of this conflict of interest, Anil Kumble, is in a cleft stick. He wears four hats at the same time in cricket. Fingers are being pointed at him now because, as the driving force behind player management company TenVic, he is also a players’ agent besides being president of Karnataka State Cricket Association, head of the National Cricket Academy chief mentor of Royal Challengers Bangalore.
His being a player agent is what is causing the most discomfort now in a game that is otherwise filled with conflicting interests among administrators and former players. This begins right at the top with BCCI president being managing director of a company that owns an IPL team. The matter is up before the Supreme Court.
The list is very long. The chief selector, Krish Srikkanth, who used to be a brand ambassador for the President’s IPL franchise, picks his son in an Indian A team, which goes abroad. Even when serving as chairman of selectors, Dilip Vengsarkar used to be associated with a cricket academy that coaches and trains promising young cricketers. A number of player-administrators were known to be backing cricket-coaching centers that charge substantial monthly fees.
Team India captains, including Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, have faced grave charges in the past of favouring some fringe players who had also signed up with the player management companies of agents of their choice. It is in matters of selection that the awkward matter of conflict of interest crops up most embarrassingly.
“I have the highest regard for Anil Kmble. He is a great servant of Indian cricket. And it’s not as if his company has signed up Rahul Dravid or Sachin Tendulkar. Please understand that a man of Kumble’s integrity will not do anything to harm the game or influence selection. If he has signed up up and coming players heis only helping them,” says former skipper Bishen Bedi, who was a firebrand in his playing days fighting the establishment on many such issues.
The heat is, however, on Kumble who countered the ‘conflicting interests’ arguments put forth first in a weekly magazine with the thought that one would have to be a Mahatma Gandhi to give up everything. While there is an outpouring of sympathy for him contrasting arguments have also been put forth by a few former players. They say that once a cricketer takes on an administrative post he must not only keep any conflict of interest at bay but also be seen to be doing so.
Sunil Gavaskar, who faced a mighty storm in the conflict of interest argument while he was chairman of the powerful ICC Cricket Committee while also being in the media, believes that no one who has the interest of cricket at heart would take wrong decisions. Over a leisurely lunch in Chennai on Sunday, Gavaskar explained the circumstances under which he resigned his ICC post.
“The criteria for becoming chairman of that committee had a specific clause that the candidate must be visible in the media. I could have carried on despite all the criticism. It’s just that at one point I felt my mind was not in the discussions taking place in the committee on the game. I realised then that I had to quit the job to give someone more committed to it the chance to serve. The case had nothing to do with conflict of interest,” he said.
All former players have one role or the other in various media. “But as I have always written, I call them as I see it. The game is supreme,” says Gavaskar of his forthright comments from the television critics’ box and in his writing that riled the ICC. He also faces a storm for being paid by the BCCI to be a comments man on television.
Gavaskar made the point forcefully that wearing any hat in the game is fine but not to mix up selection matters. If one went by that line of argument, Kumble is in the clear because he has no role to play in selection of players to the national team. Hence, he does not face a potential conflict of interest at a time when the selectors are being paid to do their job.
Another former great captain of Indian cricket, Kapil Dev, says there is room for everyone to contribute to the game they love. “The media is drumming up a controversy in this case. Kumble is a gentleman who will never act against the game’s interests. BCCI needs people of caliber to run the game,” he points out.
All former cricket greats are drawn into the game in some way or the other, mostly in the media. Many like Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Shivlal Yaav have taken up elective posts in cricket associations. They are the ones who face the most heat in their dual or multiple roles. But, as the cricket greats point out, they are only serving the game’s best interests.