Conflict of interest mars selection of umpires

MUMBAI: On June 22, an anonymous e-mail landed in the inboxes of Indian cricket board secretary Amitabh Choudhary, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry, CEO Rahul Johri and members of the Committee of Administrators (CoA). The sender sought to highlight the rot in Indian cricket's umpiring ecosystem-primarily pertaining to conflict of interest in the process to select future umpires.
"Hello sir, umpiring exam questions and answers are known to candidates beforehand.Happened for June 2018 exam. Had happened in 2017 exam. Please give appointment (sic) I can tell names of people involved and people benefiting or have criminal investigation done by police or CBI," the email read.
TOI's efforts to follow up on the charges mentioned in the email point to BCCI-presently being administered by the CoA--being at fault.
The board has a six-member committee empowered to conduct umpiring examinations and pick potential officials for domestic cricket. After speaking to several individuals who track this committee, TOI learned that three of the six members-Bhupinder Singh Bhatti (Vidarbha), Rajiv Risodkar (MP), Shavir Tarapore (Karnataka), Ganesh Iyer, Vilas Bandivadekar and Ajit Datar (all Mumbai)-are also actively involved in training and preparing the candidates for the examination.
Barring Tarapore, who retired as a prominent international umpire, there are others in the committee who happen to hold crucial posts in their state associations, thereby adding to the conflict of interest.
Several BCCI officials TOI spoke to revealed that Iyer, Datar and Bandivadekar are also involved in training individuals for the umpiring exam in Mumbai. To draw an analogy, it would be akin to an instructor in a coaching class setting the paper for an exam his wards would be giving. TOI reached out to Iyer, Datar and Bandivadekar for their version.
The Level-2 refresher course for umpires begin on August 1.
The refusal on part of board officials-be it court-appointed administrators or elected/salaried individuals-to acknowledge the problem in domestic cricket and seek a solution is baffling to say the least.
Only one of the four officials to whom the email was addressed to wrote back to the 'whistle-blower'. The others simply ignored it.
As highlighted by TOI earlier, there is an acute shortage of umpires in the country to officiate in First Class (Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy) and List A (all other tournaments conducted by BCCI) matches. In fact, a mind-boggling 2,017 matches are lined up for the 2018-19 season. And there are only 97 umpires and 54 referees to oversee as many as 55 matches a day.
After coming on board at the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2012 to help develop the International Umpire Accreditation Program, it has been former club cricketer Denis Burns's responsibility to conduct programmes (including exams) for England, India, South Africa and Zimbabwe. He had done the same in Australia and Europe earlier. "Have (the) exams conducted by a private organization of people not related to umpiring," the whistleblower suggested. "There are very good retired umpires who can set the paper. Here, candidates know the answers beforehand. For them, preparation before exam is by-hearting answers of 30-35 questions which will come in the exam. Lots of malicious activities going on (sic)," the individual wrote.
"This is happening right under the nose of the administrators while they are busy planning things like constructing a state-of-the-art academy, making billion-dollar broadcast deals, fighting unending court cases and spending big money on law firms. What's the point when cricket itself is in such a mess?" says a candidate who appeared for an umpiring exam once, failed, and then learned that he cannot take the exam again.