Pay the players, sack Manohar

Now with India's disastrous performance echoing in Parliament, out comes another BCCI Vice-President, Mr Shashank Manohar, who tells the billion people of India that BCCI has "absolutely no responsibility" whatsoever with India's cricketing performance.

In that case, why Manohar and one Lalit Modi are not managing kabaddi and kho-kho beats me?

Mr Manohar, instead of trying to encourage and motivate his battered team, has joined the current bandwagon of critics mostly because it suits BCCI politically and as a public relations exercise to distance itself from India's atrocious hara-kiri a few days ago.

BCCI sure makes for a duplicitous, treacherous parent-body with double-standards.

So according to Manohar, when the going is great, BCCI will appropriate full credit for being a "professional institution committed to the betterment of Indian cricket".

When the going gets tough, however, BCCI will hang the Indian players by the tallest tree with the thinnest thread, and leave them dangling for the vultures. By this logic, it is evident that BCCI is being managed by true-blue mercenaries.

I have always maintained (readers are requested to read my blogs) that the principal culprit for India's shoddy showing over the years has been the BCCI; the organization that is supposed to run a game which holds a nation spell-bound, inspires dreams, builds hopes and drives us all insane.

By making the bizarre statement that the Indian players (which includes two all-time greats Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid) "should not be paid a penny" for their flop show in Durban, Manohar has revealed the selfish, exploitative and manipulative mind-set of BCCI, which at the time of writing must be far too busy negotiating commercial rights for helmet branding.

Worse, it is insulting and humiliating for the entire Indian team trying to stage a come-back.

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Does Mr Manohar understand how demoralising and disheartening his statement must be for the Indian team who need support and strength from their parent body?

Does Manohar think that the BCCI is his private limited company that he can utter whimsical statements without even understanding the implications of his deliberately populist stance? And isn't the BCCI itself completely responsible for delaying signing players' contracts anyway?

Unlike wealthy cricket administrators like Sharad Pawar, Lalit Modi and Mr Manohar, many Indian cricketers come from simple economic backgrounds and cricket is their whole livelihood and only career option.

Does Mr Manohar have a right to make them forfeit their income?

If performance is the sole criteria, shouldn't BCCI resign en masse itself, as they could not even arrange for team blazers for the Indian team, amongst other several serious lapses?

When the crucial Champions Trophy was on, the BCCI was running a daily war of words with ICC. Shouldn't the BCCI officials resign for diverting their players attention from on-field cricketing challenges to off-filed shenanigans of egotistical incompetent buffoons. ?

Instead of taking full responsibility for all activities associated with cricket, Mr Manohar has clearly has washed his dirty hands off, saying BCCI has nothing to do with the way cricket is played. What a gargantuan shame?

In that case, Mr Manohar why don't you and your illustrious colleagues just pack-off and we Indians will pick quality professionals who will genuinely work for improving Indian cricket?

I think the time has come to completely dismantle the rubbish structure of zonal systems, and look for a drastic out-of-box solution to re-organise the entire administrative set-up.

There are two lessons emerging from Manohar's strident diatribe that requires pondering and immediate action:

1) The Indian cricketers must organize themselves into a solid professional body, unlike the limping IPCA, which seems it could do with a Viagra over-dose or join the international players association and bargain hard for player's rights. For instance, they should refuse to play exhibition masala matches that fill BCCI coffers.

2) It is time the Indian public, which is treated like gullible fools and given a shoddy treatment, stopped allowing the BCCI mandarins to exploit the great national sport for their parochial political ends.