Time to clean the mess

The never-ending scandals don?t just cast a shadow on the IPL. They reflect poorly on Indian cricket and us as a nation, too, says Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, Percept Group, a marketing communications network

Fixing, betting, gambling, bad behavior on the ground and off it, mismanagement, poor governance and the list goes on. IPL has seen all this and more. And where does all this emanate from?

According to me, whether it?s an organization, sport or any institution, values and culture flow from the top. If the owner is misguided, the company is bound to be misguided. If the leadership is weak, the institution is weak. And this is exactly what has happened to the Indian cricket shepherded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The controversies, the scams, the irregularities and now law breaking activities have reached to such an extent that it wouldn?t be wrong to label the BCCI as the Board of Cricket Controversies of India.

In my opinion, everything boils down to the issue of conflict of interest. There are a few simple questions that the people of this nation need to ask themselves and of each other.

Is it okay if the president of the governing board of an institution also doubles up as the owner of an IPL team? Are we all right with one cricketer as the captain of all three formats of the game? Is it also fine if the same captain i.e. MS Dhoni works for a company run by the president of the BCCI and also belongs to a team that connected with him, i.e. Chennai Super Kings?

Is it okay that the son-in-law of the board president is the chief executive or decision maker of the team in question? Can we also accept the fact that he?s facing arrest for alleged match fixing and confirmed betting while the father-in-law continues to lead the board?

Is it acceptable that the president of the board gets rules amended to ensure he not only gets to keep a team, get players of his choice and also retain his position as the president even after the IPL is discovered to be a fixers paradise?

I think it needs to be said that the IPL is a franchise built not by the BCCI or the cricketers or the media. IPL is the property of the citizens of our country and the cricket loving population of the world. They have built this brand, and they own it. No individual or organization has the right to compromise or destroy it.

Indians are generally fun-loving people. We don?t make too much of a fuss over everything. But we are a single sport nation and this incident is way too big to be ignored or forgotten. When will we stand up and say: ?We?re not going to accept our sport, our pride, and our nation, being compromised??

It?s time for us to unite and ask for cleaning up of this mess. We need to demand the BCCI, which is the sole body for cricket in India, to be responsible, transparent and accountable. Indian cricket needs to clean up its act, for the world is watching us and a mess like this doesn?t cast a shadow only on Indian cricket but on us as a nation, too.