Board’s machinations may see Bihar axed

While the Indian team is on a high on the tour of England with plenty of options to pick the side for the first of the four Tests, starting on Thursday, back home the cricket board is grappling with agitated member-units opposed to the new Ranji Trophy format. The board is also proposing to amend the constitution to disaffiliate a state association.
Just as Sourav Ganguly has acquired enormous powers to do anything with the team composition, board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya is riding high after the recent performance of the national side. If Ganguly is unwilling to leave out Virender Sehwag from the Test eleven, Dalmiya has yet again chosen the right time to amend the constitution to disaffiliate Bihar to bring in newly carved out Jharkhand state.
The draft amendments circulated to the affiliated units surprisingly makes it clear that the proposed change is being made specifically to delete Bihar’s name from the list of permanent board members. The second amendment will give powers to the board to do away with the existing clause barring a member being affiliated directly.
If the amendment is carried at the special general meeting in Mumbai on August 7-8, any state unit can be affiliated as full member without serving the stipulated five years continuously as associate member.
In the case of the bifurcation of a state, the board under the amended constitution can grant full membership to a state after two years as associate member. That means, Bihar, Uttaranchal and Chattisgarh can hope to become full members soon provided they owe swear by the present rulers.
The amendments are fraught with danger and in the next couple of years, all north-eastern states can be made full members whether they have the infrastructure or not. All it needs is the approval of two-third members present at an annual general or special general meeting. Then it can also dangle a carrot to a Union territory like Chandigarh by amending the constitution to spite Punjab and Haryana which draw some players from the city. Now only the states can be the board members. That’s the arrogance of power.
The immediate provocation for the amendments is that the board says that as far as it is concerned Bihar cricket means Jamshedpur and the steel city is now part of Jharkhand. According to a committee that went to Bihar, the state has no infrastructure or the wherewithal to organise cricket at any level and so it should be thrown out of the board. The board is unimpressed with Bihar’s argument that it has shifted its headquarters from Jamshedpur to Patna and that Jharkhand should seek fresh affiliation. Just because the Tatas have created all the infrastructure in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand becomes a full member and Bihar has to go.
In the amendment to lay down procedure for affiliation arising out of bifurcation or division of any state, it says that “the board after the evaluation of the standard of the game and infrastructure facilities, grant affiliation to the central controlling bodies (duly registered either under the Societies Registration Act or Body corporate) of the said different state arising out of division.�
In view of the proposed amendments, members of the board’s programme and fixtures committee couldn’t finalise the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and other domestic cricket fixtures when they met in Mumbai on Monday and they will now meet after the special general meeting. The new Ranji Trophy format has created a piquant situation as the working committee rejected the recommendation of the technical committee to have a 10-team elite league and instead imposed a 15-team senior division divided into two groups of eight and seven teams and a Plate division of 12 teams divided into two groups.
The members are divided on the issue of relegation and promotion of the teams. Some want only two teams relegated and others three. There has to be a play-off to decide the third team. There is also a suggestion that four teams should be relegated. Also, they don’t know how to divide the top 15 teams into two groups, should it be by draw of lots or on the basis of their standing in the zone last year.
When the technical committee debated the issue, some Test stars attending the meeting as special invitees, backed Sunil Gavaskar’s proposal to have a ten team league, the top two teams of each zone. They were snubbed by a former Test star and now secretary of a state association saying that what do they know about Ranji Trophy, they only play for their states when they are thrown out of the Test side!