IPL verdict: Lodha committee's common sense and logic trump BCCI's blinding greed

The Chennai Super Kings are undoubtedly the most successful and popular team in the Indian Premier League. They win titles, have a fanatical fan following and some of the league’s finest players. They also have Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, are the small-budget team that inspired many dreams. They belied their underdog status year after year. They would start well and then they would struggle. But they gave us a Sanju Samson; a Pravin Tambe; a Swapnil Asnodkar. Shane Warne steered them in the early years and of course, at the heart of this all, is Rahul Dravid.

But after the Lodha commission suspended their owners (and in essence, the teams themselves until a new owner is found) for two years, their future and perhaps that of the IPL itself is mired in a haze of uncertainty and frustration.

Many ‘Whistle Podu’ fans are asking what happens to our team next but honestly the question they all need to be asking is why were things allowed to get to this point. Justice Lodha, while reading out the verdict, mentioned time and again that the owners failed to take ‘urgent’ action even when they knew that something wrong was happening.

If you had bothered to ask any cricket fan over the last five years about the state of the game – specifically the IPL – the answer would not have been a laudatory one. There were reports in newspapers, revelations, leaks, court cases, fixing controversies and through all this – in the face of logic itself – the BCCI kept insisting that everything is all right. The denials were rarely ever convincing. If anything, they had an arrogant, brazen edge to them.

To put things straight: They saw it happen but they chose (yes, the decision was theirs to make) to not act. Their actions seemingly dictated by the money that the IPL was earning for the BCCI.

It was their golden goose and they were afraid that any change might lead to dire consequences.They were afraid of change; afraid of altering the balance; afraid of doing the right thing because it affected the bottom line. They thought it would be easier to sweep things under the carpet and wait it out.

They could think abut that strategy because it has been used before… successfully too. But not for one moment did they consider the impact on the sport itself; an impact that went beyond money and injured the very soul of the game.

The impact was so great that we now view everything that happens IPL with fixing-stainted glasses. CSK make the final – must’ve been fixed. Mumbai Indians win – must be fixed. Rajasthan lose in the semis – fixed, of course. Catch dropped – fixed. Full toss – fixed. Run out – do you even need to ask.

It is all a big fix in our eyes. We watch it still… we do – but not as sport. This is just entertainment now.

The BCCI, however, still saw the money rolling in as did the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals and that was enough for them to ignore the gathering dark clouds. Srinivasan – the then BCCI president – had a simple parameter for success: money.

Justice Lodha’s verdict is damning not just for the owners of the franchises but also for the BCCI.

“Purity of the game has been affected by the actions of India Cements and CSK. Fans have been cheated,” said Lodha before stressing on why money isn’t he be all and end all of cricket. “If cricket is indeed bigger, financial loss to player or franchises is not important.”

“We feel that our decision will uphold the paramountcy of the game. This is our institutional view,” Lodha further added in a very matter-of-fact manner.

The punishment is exemplary and sends out a strong message but it must not be viewed as a sensational one. If anything, the verdict has been dictated by common sense and logic – two qualities that the BCCI and the owners of CSK and RR (Indian Cements and Jaipur IPL) have shown they clearly lack.

The Lodha panel spoke to journalists, editors, and anyone else who had a stake in the matter and arrived at a decision that really was the BCCI’s to take; a decision they should have taken instead of giving Gurunath Meiyappan the clean chit or allowing the investigation against Raj Kundra to stop once it transferred to Rajasthan.

All great achievements require time but in its rush to attain greatness, the BCCI and the owners ignored the rules that they themselves had put in place. And truth to be told, in their refusal to act, they cheated not just the fans but the game itself.