Ramachandra Guha slams Dhoni, Gavaskar, supports Kumble in his explosive resignation letter

Famous historian and a member of the Supreme Court-constituted Committee of Administrators (CoA) for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Ramachandra Guha, resigned from his post as an administrator after being appointed in January 2017, when the committee was formed.
In a letter to CoA chief Vinod Rai dated June 2, 2017, Guha has come down on the superstar status accorded to certain players by the BCCI and the preferential treatment granted to them. He has also written about how certain former and current players are stakeholders of player management firms and thus indirectly receiving money and preferring the players their firm manages.

Guha has given eight points in his letter as reasons for his resignation,

1.    The BCCI has accorded preferential treatment to some national coaches, by giving them ten-month contracts for national duty, thus allowing them to work as IPL coaches/mentors for the remaining two months. The more famous the former player-turned-coach, the more likely was the BCCI to allow him to draft his contract that left loopholes that he exploited to dodge the conflict of interest issue.

2.    BCCI commentators also act as player’s agents. Sunil Gavaskar, a BCCI contracted commentator, chaired Professional Management Group (PMG), India’s first sports marketing company that had signed Shikhar Dhawan. Dhoni was captain of the Indian team while holding a stake in a firm that represented some current India players. No action has been initiated in the several months that this was brought to the Committee’s notice.

3.    BCCI awarding MS Dhoni an ‘A’ contract when he had explicitly ruled himself out from all Test matches was indefensible on cricketing grounds and sends absolutely the wrong message. This is the preferential treatment accorded to superstar players.

4.    The way in which the contract of Anil Kumble, the current Head Coach of the senior team, has been mishandled. The Kohli-Kumble issue should have been resolved immediately after the Australian tour instead of leaving Kumble hanging and re-advertising the post afresh.

5.    The callous treatment to domestic cricket and cricketers, namely, those who represent their state in the Ranji Trophy, the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and other inter-state tournaments and the financial disparity between them and the international players.

6.    CoA was silent over the fact that people disqualified to serve as office bearers of state and even BCCI run cricket bodies were allowed to do so although irregularities were reported in the press.

7.    The absence of a senior male cricketer in the CoA. If there were such a person on board the BCCI management and the office-bearers would have been compelled to be far more proactive in implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations than they have been thus far.

8.    There were several crucial decisions made where all the COA members were not brought into the loop. For instance, a capable, non-political Senior Counsel representing the COA and the BCCI in the Supreme Court was abruptly replaced by another Senior Counsel who is a party politician.

He finally requested Vinod Rai to place on his vacated position a senior, respected, male cricketer with administrative experience.
 

• Ramachandra Guha
• Cricket
• Resignation
• BCCI