Shouldn't the fab five question BCCI's credibility?
If the Joker is terrorising Gotham city, everyone would look to Batman to defeat him and restore order. Likewise, when Indian Cricket is under siege, wouldn't we look to the Tendulkars, Dravids, Gangulys, Kumbles, Laxmans to be the crusaders to protect the sanctity of the game?
When we speak of cricket, we do not think of the Srinivasans and Dalmiyas. We think of Tendulkar, Dhoni, Dravid and Ganguly. It is the cricketers who make the sport and it is they who must stand up for its sanctity. Having represented the sport and the nation, it is their duty to ensure that the world looks at it with admiration and not derision.
India is a cricketing nation. We love cricket. We worship the sport and the cricketers are, for us, like gods. Thanks to the IPL spot fixing scandal, the cricketing world is steadily losing respect for Indian Cricket and the nation itself is losing faith in the sport. BCCI has reduced what was once a glorious sport to nothing more than an overdramatised, cheap soap opera.
As if the spot fixing scandal didn’t damage the sport’s reputation enough, the BCCI made matters worse by blatantly displaying the politics and power struggles within. The eyewash of a probe panel and its report was the final nail in the coffin. Never has cricket sunk so low and never has the sport and its governing body been so deeply loathed.
If order is to be restored and if the guilty are to be punished, the veteran cricketers, whom we still hold in high regard, need to act. They need to raise their voices in unison and remind the BCCI that the sport is bigger than the personal and even ulterior motives of those governing the board. Those governing the sport in the country need to be reminded that they can use it as an alternate means to proliferate their wealth. Those in the higher echelons of BCCI need to be reminded that they are there not just to make money but also to ensure that the sport is nurtured with utmost care.
With victories all across the cricketing globe, the Indian team at the moment is making headlines for all the right reasons. Despite that, respect that the cricket fan has is being wrung out drop by drop every day. BCCI, through their actions (or the lack of it) over the past few weeks, are the culprits.
It has been two months since the IPL scandal broke out, and BCCI seems to be in denial and looks to be pretending that all is well within. They are yet to do anything to ensure that the nation does not lose its faith in the sport and the governing body. It is time the veteran cricketers join hands and say “enough is enough”. While all we can do is stand and watch, the giants of Indian cricket are the ones who can truly make a difference. They, and only they, with their words and actions, can bring about the change we all desire and thereby restore the sport to its former glory. It is time they took a stand for the sake of both the nation and the sport that they played with blazing passion.
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