Recently, on 5th October Sharad Pawar , who also nominated himself as candidate for president, was named Chairman of the Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee of the International Cricket Council. This nomination came after it was decided that David Morgan would continue to preside over the ICC till 2010.

Looking into this scenario as a lover of the sport makes one wonder why is it that someone so incompetent, someone who clearly has no passion for the sport is doing at the rank of Chairman of the Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee. Here is where Sharad Pawar has reached from the job of a Union Minister, ensuring farmer welfare across the country. After toppling Jagmohan Dalmiya at the BCCI , here he is waiting to grab the reigns of the ICC from the year 2010. The question to be raised here is – why?

Why is it that sports administration is being handed over to power hungry politicians, rather than stalwarts of the game who can bring about some real changes? Perhaps the answer to this lies in the money involved. Perhaps money explains everything from why the game has changed for worse in recent years, and why members of the ICC are always those nominated by the wealthiest and most powerful cricket boards.

For starters, let us critically consider the progress (or regress) of the game from classical test cricket to Twenty 20 cricket. Over years as the popularity of the game soared, as money and sponsors poured in assets, as audiences grew, there arose a need to tap all the money that cricket has the potential to reap. Thus the evolution of one day cricket, and more recently Twenty 20 cricket as an instant money churner.

Gradually the game is sinking into a mere money spinner for everyone involved, and the real sport is fading into oblivion. Every aspiring cricketer looks more into the commercial aspect of the game, rather than anything else. In this current state, perhaps Sharad Pawar is the perfect Chairman and future leader. Coming from the world’s biggest cricketing nation, from the country that puts in the largest share of money in the sport, it was the safest decision the ICC could make.

But how much good will this do to our much loved sport which is slowly losing its way in that dense forest of politics and money? How far will this decision work against the interests of the game, and kill its very spirit? Politics has always been a rather volatile concept. Today it has become a veritable demon that can get everything it demands by hook or by crook. Handing over the game in its hands is sucking the life out of it. Work will get done no doubt, but only at the cost of denigrating the game to a mere business. Something needs to be done, and fast.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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