BCCI in a Catch-22 situation

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) seems to find themselves in a Catch-22 situation regarding the Players’ Contract.

Probably if they had restored to a “wait and watch” tactics till the upcoming Bangladesh tour was over, they could have found a way out from their present predicament , where the players have refused to sign the contract after the Board insisted that the players have to sign the contract before their departure to Dhaka and then declared that they (players) can sign the contract after the tour was over fearing a backlash.

Now as an after though the Board has not only given a statement that the players can sign the contract after the Bangladesh tour but have also appointed a two-member committee to look into the existing contract as if that would settle the issue once and for all.

Beating Bangladesh in Bangladesh will not be a hurricane job for the Indian team despite their loss to the minnows in the league stages of the recent World Cup. Now if the Indians win both the One-Day series as well as the Test series quite convincingly their critics, who were after their blood after India’s poor showing in the World Cup, will certainly start rooting for them as the cricket crazy Indian public are known to forget and forgive their heroes.

This is not the first time that an Indian team has performed disastrously in a big tournament nor will this be the last and if you go by the Indian public’s mentality, the bigger the margin of victory, the better the fan following for the Indian team and the World Cup debacle will be forgotten in a jiffy.

However, as far as BCCI is concerned it seems they simply jumped the gun by making drastic changes in the players’ contract by attempting to make a huge dent to players’ pocket by reducing the annual retainer ship to Rs five lakhs.

If only the Board had waited till the end of the team’s next assignment and then made the necessary changes, they would have had a solid reason to pursue the majority of the players to sign the contract based on the performance of the seniors.

If the seniors had flopped miserably, a very highly unlikely scenario, then the Board would have had a good chance of getting the signature of the youngsters on the contract and if the team had done exceptionally well then there was no reason to tamper with the contracts in a big way.

Either way the cash-rich Board would not have been in a soup that they find themselves or make a complete U-turn to save their face as they too know that the players are almost worshipped as demi-gods in this part of the world and anyone, no matter how influential they are, cannot take on the might of the team as a whole.

Singling out a single star player for punishment for his attitude is one thing but taking on the whole team including seasoned campaigners like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid for under performance in just one tournament will only cause more head ach to the governing body.

Instead of treating the players like spoilt brats and punishing them monetarily, it would be wise on part of BCCI to sit across the table and settle the issue amicably like grown-up gentlemen.

After all cricket is still a gentlemen's game!