It’s not cricket, the Board takes guard for a war minus shooting

Cricket may have its set of rules, but elections for its office-bearers very clearly do not.

A brief background for the uninitiated: Calcutta industrialist Jagmohan Dalmiya, the current president of the International Cricket Council and former secretary of the BCCI, and serving bureaucrat Inderjit Singh Bindra, a former president of the BCCI, were once friends. So thick, that they joined hands to bring the stuffed shirts in London to their knees and wrested from them not only the right to host the World Cup twice in less than a decade but also the hallowed portals of the ICC office at Lords’.Then one morning they woke up and found themselves on opposite sides. In one corner, therefore, is Bindra, the president of the Punjab Cricket Association, who now no longer holds any position in the BCCI and in the opposite corner is Dalmiya, the president of Cricket Association of Bengal who is also the president of the ICC.

Eat your heart out, Don King, so what if you have Tyson and Holyfield. We have two well-heeled suave gentlemen slugging it out and the gloves are off.If Tyson and Holyfield had seconds holding towels in their hands waiting to clean the dirty mouthpieces, the seconds for Bindra and Dalmiya have the benign hand of political heavyweights over them.

The Bindra Group has put up high-profile Sunil Dev, nephew of Sheila Kaul, who is also known to be close to Kamal Nath, as its candidate for secretary. As the one who also runs the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Society, Dev is known to have a line to 10, Janpath. Opposing him is J Y Lele, currently joint secretary and one who stood in for Dalmiya, when the latter gave up his office as secretary of BCCI after becoming the ICC president. For president, the Dalmiya Group is behind incumbent Raj Singh Dungarpur and opposing him is Bindra’s candidate, D C Agashe of Maharashtra.

If the Bindra Group claims to have the political clout of Madhavrao Scindia, Farooq Abdullah, Tariq Anwar and George Fernandes, the Dalmiya Group is said to have the support of heavyweights such as Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, former MP Kamal Morarka and former prime minister Chandra Shekhar. Even the name of controversial tantrik Chandraswami is being thrown around in this no-holds-barred fight.

In this winner-takes-all battle, there are 31 chips to be fought for. One who gets 16 is through and the other a loser, left licking his wounds and hoping for a re-match sometime next year.

The 31 chips are the 25 state associations, Railways, Services, Universities and two clubs and one vote from the president in case of a tie.

Interestingly, the two clubs, Cricket Club of India and National Cricket Club, which have no active ole in cricket but have voting rights, will go Dalmiya’s way, as NCC is based in Calcutta and CCI in Mumbai.

Bindra Group, which has the support of all seven votes from the North including the Universities and Services, claims to have three more from Central, three from West and at least two each from East and South, making up for 17 out of the 31. The Dalmiya Group by its assessment claims it has 17 votes, so it now remains to be seen who are the fence-sitters and this is where the likes of Chandraswami come in.

The weigh-ins are still going on and the bout is scheduled for Thursday, the seconds are on the phones, the others nicely ensconced in their air-conditioned rooms, each costing upwards of Rs 5,000 a night at Taj Coromandel in Chennai.

And by the way, Indian cricket is still looking for a professional coach and a physical trainer and decisions have still to be taken on who will lead the national side in the upcoming series as also who the selectors will be. But then, when the Spice Boys’ of Indian cricket — read officials –are around, who needs cricket.y