CHENNAI: Come March and the commentators employed directly by the Board of Control for Cricket in India may not get their contracts renewed. It is reliably learnt that the BCCI will leave it to the broadcaster — Star Sports — to decide on the commentary panel, meaning Sunil Gavaskar and L Sivaramakrishnan won’t be on the payrolls of the board any more. Gavaskar draws close to Rs 3.6 crore per year.
The BCCI in 2010 employed Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Sivaramakrishnan as commentators. The contracts meant it was mandatory for the BCCI-event broadcaster to have them in the commentary panel in matches organised by the BCCI (including IPL).
But the BCCI now seems to have taken a different view on the matter and is considering to do away with the idea of “employing” commentators. Though specific reasons for this change in plan are not clear, sources in the board cited the huge sums paid to them as one of the reasons.
As per the list put up on the BCCI website, the board paid Rs 8,93,6104 to Gavaskar for commentary fees for the period between July to September 2015. Sivaramakrishnan got Rs 26 lakh for the same period. “At the last working committee meeting it was discussed what is the need to recruit commentators when the host broadcasters can do it themselves. Many members felt it is an unnecessary expense and with the board doing certain things to clean up its image, it is not ideal to have people paid by the board to voice their opinion. People can question that as well,” sources in the know told Express on Thursday.
Apart from the BCCI payment, Star Sports also pays the commentators a professional fee, which is between Rs 35,000 to a lakh per day. Moreover, the BCCI might also do away with the unwritten command that bars commentators employed by the broadcaster to make comments against the board. Because of this, former Australia captain Ian Chappell pulled out of the commentary panel for an ODI series in 2013.
Even during the recent Test series against South Africa, Gavaskar didn’t make comments against the spinning pitches and blamed batsmen of both sides instead.
In the past, whenever the topic of DRS came up for discussion on air, Shastri and Gavaskar had taken the same stand of their employers and the former famously had an animated argument with former England captain Nasser Hussain and accused the England Cricket Board of being jealous of their Indian counterparts.
But the irony was that it happened only a few months after Shastri, who was then part of the ICC Cricket Committee, had recommended the use of DRS in all international matches.
