NAGPUR: Former India cricketer Kirti Azad blasted the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for not complying with the recommendations of the Lodha Committee. Azad, who was in the city as a chief guest during Bankers Sports Council’s golden jubilee year, said the recommendations are the best thing to happen to the game.
“BCCI is like a “spoilt child”. When Lodha Committee said that enough is enough and the game can’t be run like this, this spoilt child, after his toys have been taken away from him, is crying,” Azad said during the press meet on Sunday.
“Everywhere there’s a ruling party or group and the opposition, except for the BCCI. It’s a united alliance – united in corruption and alliances for position. It’s a classic mix of UPA and NDA. The board president was once with UPA (Sharad Pawar) and now is with NDA (Anurag Thakur). Jyotiraditya Scindia lost the BCCI vice-president post and became a part of BCCI’s most powerful finance committee. Rajiv Shukla lost the post of treasurer but became the IPL chairman. Nobody is friend or foe in BCCI. The money has kept them together,” said Azad.
“Cricket isn’t anybody’s property. The current officials feel that BCCI is their personal fiefdom. We supported the recommendations and intervened in the Supreme Court. You see how hockey suffered because of bad management. Once it was the most popular game but now general public doesn’t even know the names of our players. These recommendations have come just at the right time to save cricket,” he added.
Azad said if the Enforcement Directorate (ED) works in an unbiased manner, every official during the IPL 2009 mess will be in trouble. “Lalit Modi is an honest man in comparison to all these officials. Modi was chairman of IPL and if he did anything wrong, why was he allowed to do wrong things. The signing authority was N Srinivasan, who went on to become president. Why did he sign cheques as treasurer? Why didn’t all top BCCI officials oppose that time? If Srinivasan or whosoever signed the cheques, it means they all knew what was happening. Why was only Lalit Modi was targeted?”