SC on Cricket Control

The control of cricket in India is a far more important activity than one imagines. After all, it has become the most important game in the country (in terms of vicarious cricket players) than any other game. It no longer matters how many people in India actually play cricket. What matters is how many people are willing to pay absurdly fat sums to watch the game being played by others. No wonder, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is the wealthiest and most influential cricket board in the whole world. Likewise, Indian cricket players who make it to Team India are some of the highest paid sportsmen in the world. So far, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had as its members and office-bearers ministers, politicians and bureaucrats. The BCCI obviously regarded this as a comfortable arrangement to sustain the superiority given to cricket and to ensure that all the political backing and fincial support needed for cricket would continue to follow without any hitch. And the pattern was followed in the States as well with important ministers being made presidents of State cricket associations. On Monday, the Supreme Court changed all that by barring ministers and bureaucrats from holding office in the BCCI and from its State affiliates. This is the right course of action for keeping politics out of the magement of cricket (and hopefully other games too) and providing scope for non-political former players of the game to be in magement. One may well ask whether the spirit of vengeance generated by the barring of ministers and bureaucrats from the magement of the game will harm the game. There is really no reason to fear this because cricket has already become a sort of culture in India, and no minister or bureaucrat would dream of taking any steps that might anger the public.