The Hindu Business Line : Organising cricket as a corporate

"But grandpa, you were the one who quoted Shakespeare to me. Something about there being `books in running brooks and sermons in stone'. Surely you would credit newspapers with offering a semblance of knowledge even if it can never quite match mother nature."

"I may have said that. But I certainly didn't mean you neglect schoolwork. But let it pass. What was it in the newspapers that caught your fancy?"

"I was reading the bit about how the Supreme Court has finally cleared Sharad Pawar's election as President of the Cricket Control Board. So, has the legal tamasha that went before it, been settled once and for all?"

"Well, if I were the the BCCI president, I wouldn't be uncorking the champagne bottles just as yet. As I understand, the Supreme Court only said that the affected parties in the election dispute could approach the appropriate forum to seek redress. So technically, the rival factions in the State Associations that were denied a chance to vote can start the legal drama all over again. It could finally end up in the Supreme Court as an appeal against the lower court's ruling."

"But all that could change if India wins the Sri Lanka series and then tops it off with a triumph against the Pakistanis on their soil!'

"That's right son. It would seem that the best place to settle election disputes in cricket would be the playing fields of Eden Gardens and Lahore, although when it comes to Sourav Ganguly it may well be the streets and by-lanes of Kolkata."

"I hope you aren't suggesting that Mr Pawar don the cricket gear and face Shoaib Akhtar at his fiercest best?"

"Ah, I see you are back to your old cheeky self again. No, I was making a larger point that there is nothing quite like successful Ends to settle a controversy about the Means, although, I dare say, Mahatma Gandhi would never approve."

"But I will say this. We have chosen cricket captains for our gulli cricket team far more smoothly than the BCCI has. We at least have no pretensions to a Vision 2010 or some such thing. But the BCCI, I understand, has one such, stretching well into World Cup 2007.'

"For someone so young you seem to have intuitively latched on to what management pundits have been advocating for long: You may have the best of managers and all the resources that an organisation needs. But if the structure is not right, it would be difficult to secure the best outcomes for an organisation."

"What has management theory on organisational structure got to do with cricket administration in the country?'

"Oh, a great deal. Whether it is a company producing bicycles that you use to go to school, or a society that helps children suffering from schizophrenia or a body that regulates cricket in a country, strange as it may seem to you, have a few things in common."

"Just what are they?"

"Every organisation has stakeholders and they have a common understanding of what they are pursuing collectively, as an organisation. For instance, it could be a company with a business purpose of producing cars and maximising profits from that venture. And if the stakeholders are large enough in number, then they have to decide how they are going to administer the business for which they have come together.

"For instance, if their idea is to produce cars for themselves, then they could constitute themselves as a mutual benefit society. A number of savings and loan institutions in the US and even insurance institutions came up under that model.'

"That is fascinating."

"Indeed, as it happens, there is more to it. The stakeholders must also decide whether they can all jointly manage the business on their own, elect somebody from among the group or bring in professionals from outside. Now each one of those decisions will have far-reaching implications on the performance of the organisation."

"Go on."

"For instance, one of the problems that confronted the S&L institutions in the US was that their mangers were seen to be often working at cross purposes to the interests of the members — the savers and borrowers who constituted these thrift institutions. There was also the problem of inability to raise capital from outside and grow even bigger. So they decided that they would corporatise themselves, get the shares listed and align managerial compensation to stock price performance. Cricket in India too, must be subjected to the same process of inquiry if output measured in terms of success in international competitions is to be improved."

"Who are the stakeholders of cricket in India?"

"Obviously the players are a key component. Then there are those who are passionately interested in the game — people like you and me. Then there is the question of how these stakeholders can come together under an organisational structure. Can we, for instance, have a structure similar to the one that Congress party had in the pre-Independence days where ordinary members of the public enrolled as members by paying four annas (in those days), elected their local representatives who, in turn, elected the next higher level of representatives and the process went all the way up to the election of the national president?

"That doesn't happen in cricket?"

"No it does not. The representative democracy practised in cricket is so skewed that that you have a representative with one vote hailing from a region that would find it difficult to gather enough people playing cricket in that region to fill a bus used for ferrying the team.'

"So, an inclusive and a vibrant democratic process would solve all the problems?"

"Of course, there would be need for checks and balances on key aspects of cricket administration just as it is in the case of democratic governance of a nation. Did you know that the power of the Prime Minister of India is not absolute? He can't even dismiss the chairman of the body that recruits the famous Indian Administrative Service officers for the nation. Similarly, the judges are selected by collegiums of fellow judges. Likewise, the selection committee may be constituted from an electoral college of former test and first class cricketers for a fixed term and who can be removed only by an impeachment process."

"So we can even have a Parliament of cricket representatives elected by the public?"

"Yes, why not. Cricket in the country earns enough to allow that indulgence."

"And possibly also have members of this cricket parliament being caught on video taking money for asking questions."

"That should add to the fun too."

Racy@TheHindu.co.in