Can Shashank Manohar clean up BCCI mess?

All eyes will be on Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Indian cricket board (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar on Sunday. While the Indian captain, who led from the front in the Indore ODI against South Africa on October 14, has bounced back to instil confidence in the team, Sunday’s match in Rajkot against South Africa will be watched with interest.

After all, following a string of three losses against the visitors, making a turnaround had not been easy. Not only has Dhoni scored, the side has got back its mojo.

Away from the cricketing action, eyes will also be focused on the BCCI working committee meeting in Mumbai with Shashank Manohar back as the president.

For long, Manohar was seen as a clean and conscientious cricket administrator who was hurt by the dirt in Indian cricket. To be more precise, when the Indian Premier League (IPL) muck came out in the open, he gave strong interviews condemning actions on and off the field.

As one who batted for the termination of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) after the Justice RM Lodha report was made public, Manohar needs to recall what all he had said in the public space.

Just to jog the readers’ memory, this July, Manohar said in a television interview: “There has been no action from BCCI to clean the mess and the board’s work is done by the court. The BCCI has to be proactive and look at the interests of the institution and not that of an individual in order to reimpose faith in the minds of the people,” he said.

At more or less the same time, Manohar had also said that IPL COO Sundar Raman should step down. Raman has been at the helm of IPL affairs for long and the general belief is that he should have been aware of all the wrongdoings in the IPL.

If one goes back to Manohar’s quotes earlier, he had suggested in April 2015 that legal action be taken against the CSK “for duping the board of over Rs 50 crore” through undervaluation while transferring its shares to a wholly-owned subsidiary.

The point is, irrespective of what is happening on the cricket field in international matches where India is competing, vis-a-vis the IPL, people look at the competition with a certain amount of suspicion.

There are news reports coming in that the BCCI may decide not to terminate the CSK and RR and just agree with the two-year ban as suggested by the Justice Lodha panel.

However, Manohar, who was so vocal in his criticism of these two teams when he was not in the BCCI, will have to justify his stand now that he is the boss. At a time when a huge question mark hangs over title sponsor Pepsi continuing to support brand IPL, the BCCI needs to show it is serious in its intent about cleaning the muck.

Last week, it was surprising to see that the BCCI had hired Deloitte to undertake “Project Transformation”. The objectives listed on the BCCI site are: Strengthen its organisation/governance structure; revolutionise its operational practices; formalise the policies and procedures in line with world-class standards; improve financial controls and processes etc; and identify opportunities for operational effectiveness and efficiency.

One is not sure about the reason to hire Deloitte, as the Justice Lodha panel will also be giving its prescription for the BCCI to function in a better manner. Coming back to the two teams — CSK and RR — the BCCI would do well to tell us what it plans to do with the IPL in 2016. Bringing in two new teams may seem a good option but what happens in 2018, when the two-year ban on CSK and RR will be over?

Will the BCCI make it a more crowded ten-team event or two teams will be knocked off?

There is an urgent need for clarity on the future of the two controversial teams and the long list of players attached to them.

It’s not as simple as players from the erstwhile Deccan Chargers moving to the new franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad. If the players are going to come into an open auction pool, the move should be planned meticulously.

Cricket fans worried about the image of the IPL need an assurance that Manohar will execute what he had said. Yes, he made no promise on the CSK and RR but now that he is in power, he needs to show he doesn’t speak in two voices.