CHENNAI: The Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) elections saw journalist Rajat Sharma scale to the top of the state body with a resounding victory. He defeated former cricketer Madan Lal by 1521-1004 votes in the fight for the post of president.
The number of former cricketers involved in administration is negligible. Even though the Lodha panel made it mandatory for all state associations to have former players in the governing body, occupying office remains a tough task for them. Of the 28 affiliated state units under the jurisdiction of the BCCI, there are only a handful of former cricketers at the top. The only prominent name is Sourav Ganguly, who heads the Cricket Association of Bengal.
Former cricketer and serving MP Kirti Azad is of the opinion that proxy voting is the primary reason behind ex-cricketers not being successful. “Due to proxy voting, many (former) cricketers do not get votes and lose seats. How are they expected to survive if the scenario is like this?” Azad, who has been critical of DDCA’s functioning in the past, said. “I have nothing against Rajat Sharma, but he is surrounded by people who have been involved in funds embezzlement and all that,” he added.
Arshad Ayub, former India spinner, is one of the few who survived years as an administrator of the Hyderabad Cricket Administration. The HCA was at a time run by former cricketers including Venkatapathy Raju and Shivlal Yadav. The Karnataka State Cricket Association, too, had cricketers at the helm from 2010-2013, with Anil Kumble as president and Javagal Srinath as secretary. The association of Mumbai has also seen former players in these roles, but not for long. In several places where former players became office-bearers, they could not continue for long.
“Other than Sourav, we have former players like Brijesh Patel (KSCA) and Sudhakar Rao (KSCA) in administration to name a few. There are very few former players in the executive committees and apex councils in state associations across the country. When it comes to DDCA, there have been a lot of non-cricketing members for a long time. It is difficult for a former cricketer to break through that,” Ayub opined.
A former cricketer and incumbent office-bearer of a state body, who doesn’t want to be named, felt coaching and other jobs is one reason why former players are not seen in the administration that often. “To be frank, how will a professional earn if he gets into administration? There are better and lucrative options like becoming a coach, manager etc. If you hire them as general managers or CEOs and pay them well, there will be more cricketers joining this field,” he said.
The dominance of the Sharma group could be gauged from the fact that all the 12 available seats were grabbed by their candidates.