Anurag Thakur took over as the BCCI secretary, defeating N. Srinivasan backed incumbent Sanjay Patel. (Source: PTI) Anurag Thakur took over as the BCCI secretary, defeating N. Srinivasan backed incumbent Sanjay Patel. (Source: PTI)

A couple of months back, Anurag Thakur took over as the BCCI secretary, defeating N. Srinivasan backed incumbent Sanjay Patel. Speaking to Sandeep Dwivedi, he chalks out the challenges and his plans for the future.

What are the challenges ahead?

The immediate challenge will be to improve Indian team’s performance overseas. Secondly, make domestic cricket more competitive. For this we are turning the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru into a Centre of Excellence. I also wish to give more exposure to the India A and Under-19 teams. We also need to focus on women’s cricket. Lastly, there are the legal and administrative challenges as well.

Lately, there has been lot of acrimony in the board, there has been infighting and factionalism.

I don’t think there are factions. Elections get over in a day or two, rest of the time there are various committees that function. It is like a federal structure where the states play a very important role. At the centre, there is a parliament that has various standing committees, who take independent decisions that get ratified by the working committee.

This is a very good system as it gives more independence and factions don’t matter. For example, there are people who have lost the elections but they are now chairman of a committee. These people will be working with those who may or may not have voted for them. But they will be taking independent decisions in the interest of the game.

Moving on, what is your view on the rebel league?

I am not aware of the details. There are so many leagues cropping up, we are not even discussing them. I think if the ICC, BCCI and other boards keep working in the interest of cricket there is no reason for others leagues to come up.

With the new global financial arrangement, the one where the Big three get the lion’s share, do you think the smaller nations will be marginalised?

No one can deny that 70 per cent of the global cricket revenue is generated from India. But we also want India to play a leading role as far as cricket is concerned. I want India to dominate on the field too. Around 40 years back, India didn’t contribute that much, so things were different back then. The dynamics will keep changing. Maybe, 30 years down the line it could be China or some other country that will be contributing more than India. So market dynamics are not in your hands.

Do you think there is this need to have a relook at the subsides and grants that state units get? There have been cases of funds being misused in the past.

Even in the government set-up the central government sends money for central sponsored schemes or funds to the states. Many states do well, others don’t. So same is here. But you have to appreciate that we have more than 22 international stadiums which no other country has. Each state association has their own academy and they are not depended on the BCCI zonal academy. So that is why I wanted to have NCA as the Centre of Excellence.

BCCI contracts top commentators. don’t you think there is a need for independent voices?

Of course, there should be independent voices. The issue is how do you provide quality content? For example, if Ravi (Shastri), Sunil (Gavaskar) or others get better deals outside India, why will they look at Indian cricket. But for Indian fans they would love to listen to the likes of Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. At the end of the day they are your employees.

At the end of the day they are your employees.

But on the cricket field and in commentary box your job is the speak about cricket and the game but not about BCCI and 10 things around that .

But once in a while you need to take a stand.

But not from the commentary box I believe.

For example, a day after the IPL match-fixing scandal broke in 2013, there was not a word from these commentators. I guess the fans wanted to know what was happening to the game.

I think there are enough platforms to discuss those things… news channels and newspapers. I think there are a number of cricket fans who want to be focused on cricket, watch a match and enjoy their evening. Why take away that opportunity from them. there are enough debates available on the TV channels, there are many platforms for those things … lets focus on cricket.

What about the role of politicians in BCCI?

In parliament, we have people from various walks of life — from journalists to businessman to educationists and politicians. If they can run the country, they can run the BCCI as well. if a person like me can build a stadium in Dharamshala, Arun Jaitley and Sharad Pawar can do the same in Delhi and Mumbai, there is an advantage of being a politician.

Administration is a different thing. Cricket jobs, selectors, coaches and running a team, for these things if you have professionals and ex-cricketers, I think it is a fair combination.

Does the party in power at the centre decides the power equation in BCCI?

Not really. In that case how is that Gangaraju and Amitabh Chaudhary, both from the BJP are said to be in the Srinivasan camp. Rajeev Shukla had my nominations, so there is no BJP or Congress like politics in the BCCI.

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