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Where does the house of Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Shanta Rangaswamy, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid go from right here?
Speaking to a spread of gamers and officers has been enlightening. The phrase that was used most frequently was ‘mess’. For a while now, the Karnataka State Cricket Association has had no President (after Raghuram Bhat was elected Treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India), and no Secretary or Treasurer (after A. Shankar and E.S. Jairam respectively resigned following the stampede). The KSCA Constitution states that vacancies needs to be stuffed inside 45 days.
Now there’s a glimmer of hope — elections that have been to be held by September 30 are lastly being held on November 30. In one nook is Test star Venkatesh Prasad and his group and within the different, media magnate Shanth Kumar and his group. Both males with clear data and an unblemished public picture.
Shanth Kumar’s is, considerably surprisingly, referred to as ‘Team Brijesh’. This is Brijesh Patel, who’s 73 and can’t contest as a result of he’s above the age restrict of 70. “This is simply to say I’m supporting them,” Patel says, “Just a message.”
Whoever is elected must take care of two necessary points: one, sensible, centered on the sport itself, and the opposite the proxy management that appears to afflict many cricket associations in India. This latter is the back-seat driving that has acquired round among the Supreme Court’s amendments to the Lodha Commission suggestions. Rather like in politics the place a chief minister’s spouse takes cost to maintain the seat heat, because it have been (like when Lalu Prasad Yadav’s spouse succeed him as Chief Minister in Bihar). Cricket officers be taught from the very best!
Niranjan Shah’s son Jaydev Shah prolonged his household’s maintain over Saurashtra cricket as did N. Srinivasan’s daughter Rupa in Tamil Nadu. Niranjan had been secretary of the Saurashtra Cricket Association for 43 years, lengthy sufficient for a lot of to surprise if the identify needs to be modified to ‘Shahrashtra’. By one calculation, almost a 3rd of the nationwide associations are run by sons, family members, or these beholden to former officers or politicians.
Influence-peddling for political, private, enterprise causes is a cricketing speciality; you solely must comply with the profession of some officers to know this. Cricket-loyalty trumps party-loyalty even, and never in a pleasant approach. Getting across the structure has turn into a nationwide sport, and sports activities associations are masters at it. There’s extra politics in cricket than vice versa, which is a pity.
Decades in the past, Brijesh Patel ended a fiefdom and introduced a breath of contemporary air to the KSCA when he led a gaggle of cricketers to oust C. Nagaraj who had been in workplace in numerous capacities for years. Now he says, “You know cricketers don’t all the time make the very best directors. There are loads of examples in India.”
E.S. Jairam, who resigned following the stampede, is the Shanth Kumar group’s secretary. The secretary in Prasad’s group is former cricketer Sujith Somasunder.
“Our focus is on the sport,” says Prasad, “The stadium constructed by an enormous like Chinnaswamy is in a multitude. The cricketing construction must be strengthened. The YSR and Group II league which haven’t been held lately should be revived. Likewise with ladies’s league cricket.”
Whoever involves energy may even must take care of the federal government, particularly relating to the return of high flight cricket to the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Past expertise has proven that the authorities, each on the civic and governmental degree, aren’t above demanding their pound of flesh for what they see as favours rendered to the cricketing physique.
Fans — the sport’s greatest stake-holders though they’re seldom handled as such — must bide their time earlier than a few of its sheen returns to the KSCA. The elections are a begin, however progress will depend upon how the 2 necessary points are addressed.
Published – November 12, 2025 12:26 am IST
