One of Indian cricket’s most respected voices on Monday summed up the mood of despair and disappointment in the wake of the spot-fixing and conflict of interest scandals that erupted following IPL-6, and sought the restoration of the game’s image in the eyes of the Indian fan.
Underlining a spreading sense of disappointment at the way those running the Board of Control for Cricket in India were handling the fallout of the scandals, former India captain Rahul Dravid said the credibility of the sport was important as it was in all matters concerning public life.
“There are so many fans and so many people who care deeply about this game and it is because of these fans that we are who we are as cricketers,” he told ESPN-cricinfo.
“Administrators are there because of the fans and the cricketers to run this game, so credibility of a game, or a board, or even a government for that matter, is important irrespective of what you do. If you are in public life it is important.”
The cricket control board has run into a serious credibility crisis which has even led to its president N. Srinivasan “stepping aside” because he had — indirectly and directly — been dragged into the scandal.
“Things like this don’t help, when we are on the front pages of the newspapers and not on the back.
“A certain amount of reverence, respect and love for cricketers can diminish, and I think it’s a really, really sad thing for cricket in this country if that had to happen.”
Srinivasan was sucked into the issue when his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan faced betting charges along with Royals co-owner Raj Kundra.
In defence of its probe panel’s findings, the BCCI on the day took the matter to the Supreme Court following the decision taken at Friday’s meeting here.
Even inadvertently, it served to reinforce Dravid’s contention, that administrators seem to have forgotten that they are here “because of the fans and the cricketers to run this game”.