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Board games

A board meeting is like a duck -- very placid on the surface, but lots of busy paddling beneath the water.

The one in Jaipur, on Tuesday, was no exception. Moves and countermoves, of a kind Garry Kasparov would have had trouble coping with, characterised the election of A C Muthiah as BCCI president and, equally importantly, the marginalisation of alternative candidate Manohar Joshi and rebel leader Inderjit Singh Bindra.

The background to the intrigue was laid way back in August, when the Hyderabad Cricket Association formally met to authorise association secretary Ranga Reddy to attend the board meeting and vote on behalf of the association -- and issued a formal letter addressed to Reddy carrying that authorisation.

Nothing strange there -- common practise, and precedent, has been for the secretaries of the various associations to vote at the AGM, except in the case of special circumstances.

A while later, however, HCA president G P Surana, with five other members attending, had a non-quorum meeting and arbitrarily decided that Surana himself, and not Reddy, would vote at the AGM.

By way of background, Ranga Reddy has been at outs with the Dalmiya faction for quite a while now. And Surana is a Dalmiya-groupie of some standing.

Reddy got the news of his disenfranchisement only when he returned from Singapore on the 10th of this month. He promptly gathered his supporters together and demanded a white paper. Simultaneously, 15 of the 21 members of the members of the HCA passed a resolution that Reddy, and not Surana, would attend as the HCA's voting representative.

An emergency meeting was called to formalise this decision. Surana and his group boycotted. 12 of the 21 members attended, however, and ratified the decision.

Reddy reached Jaipur, readying to play an important role. While Manohar Joshi, the candidate put forward by the anti-Dalmiya faction, is head of the Mumbai Cricket Association, that body was unwilling to officially sponsor his candidature against that of the Dalmiya-group's A C Muthiah.

The publicly cited reason is that MCA had already had its turn, with Raj Singh Dungarpur, and it was now the turn of the south. The unofficial, but real, reason is that the MCA didn't want to openly buck Dalmiya, and thus jeopardise its chances of being allocated one of the two India-South Africa Tests scheduled for early next year.

Reddy, on behalf of the HCA, was therefore supposed to propose the name of Manohar Joshi, with the AP cricket association seconding. On the eve of the meeting, Joshi had the assured backing of 6 associations, the covert backing of the MCA, and the Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Orissa associations were discreetly promising him support as well.

This meant that Joshi would go in with 11 of 25 votes virtually in the bag, and the very real prospect that such a stiff challenge would swing enough fence-sitters over to his side to upset the Dalmiya-Muthiah applecart.

Dalmiya made the first move when he invited Joshi for a breakfast meeting, one to one, on the morning of Tuesday. At the time, Joshi was briefed about some events to follow, which would obviously cut into his presumed support base. Joshi did the smart thing -- he voluntarily withdrew his candidature and, in return, was assured that he would be re-elected as BCCI vice president representing the West Zone.

This happened behind the scenes, while the rebel group under Bindra remained unaware of developments. The fun began when the officials landed up for the meeting and Kamal Morarka, vice president from the north, informed Reddy that while he could attend the meeting, he would not be allowed to vote or otherwise actively participate, as it had been decided that Surana would vote on behalf of the HCA.

Reddy protested that the question of who should vote on behalf of an association could be taken only by members of that association, and not by the BCCI. But Morarka was adamant that this was how it was going to be.

Bindra rushed to court, to file suit asking that the election results be frozen and sealed until after the issue of voting rights could be thrashed out. Meanwhile, the meeting got underway, and at around 2.30, had barely worked down to the second point on the agenda.

Suddenly, lunch was called. Sources indicate that shortly before that, outgoing Board president Raj Singh Dungarpur and secretary J Y Lele had been alerted that a court order sealing the results of the elections was en route, and would be delivered to them later that evening.

Lunch was supposed to extend till 3.45 pm. Instead, those members in the know rushed back before 3.30 pm and reconvened. And Dungarpur, exercising his presidential right, skipped to item number six on the agenda -- to wit, the election of his replacement as president.

Bindra and company, aware that they were being outflanked on two counts -- by then it had become apparent that Joshi had withdrawn, and chosen to cast his lot in with the ruling clique -- protested, and walked out. The election of Muthiah was then quickly pushed through -- no surprise there, since there was no opposing candidate by that stage.

And the election of Muthiah was then quickly announced to the media by secretary J Y Lele.

At 4.30 pm, the court official landed up with the order sealing the election results. At which point, the board officials claimed with a perfectly straight face that it was too late to comply, since the elections had been held and the results already announced to the media.

You can't get toothpaste back into the tube, can you? That was the crux of the official argument, and the cornerstone of the Dalmiya group's strategy.

The rebellion had been undercut, and Bindra and company were left hanging in the cold. Last heard from, they are huddling with their lawyers, exploring avenues to have the election set aside.

" I was deprived of my chance to nominate my candidate for election", said a disappointed Reddy, afterwards, giving vent to sour grapes that, in the face of the ruling faction's fait accompi, is an obvious exercise in futility.

Interestingly, even the appointment of Kapil Dev as national coach was not as straightforward as it was made to appear.

Cast your mind back to the BCCI meeting two years ago in Madras, which ended just this side of a riot. On that occasion, you will recall that when the meeting was reconvened, the board hierarchy sought to deflect criticisms, both within the meeting and from the media, with a series of announcements.

One such was the naming of Bobby Simpson as consultant coach. Within an hour of the official announcement by Lele, Rediff contacted Simpson in Australia, and discovered he was clueless. Apparently the board had forgotten to give him the glad tidings. "We have not even discussed this yet," Simpson told us then.

We then contacted Dungarpur, to ask how come. "Oh, we decided Bobby was the right choice, he is a good friend and won't say no to me," was the reply of the then board president.

Different year, same tactic - this time, with Kapil Dev's name being announced. Only, at the time the announcement was made, no one had yet talked to Kapil and nailed the thing down.

Dalmiya subsequently approached Dev with the offer. And last heard from, the former star, who had earlier expressed interest in the assignment, is mulling the various factors (read, duration of contract, the time his work as coach will involve and how that impacts on his other commitments, the money on offer, etc) before taking a final decision.

More fireworks are scheduled for today, when among other things, the secretary's report and the treasurer's balance sheet are filed and taken up for discussion.

Also on the agenda is the selection committee, with Ajit Wadekar copping enormous flak, on day one, for his autocratic style of functioning, and various faux pas arising therefrom, all of which have in fact been detailed here and in other sections of the media.

With Manohar Joshi not bothering to defend Wadekar though they belong to the same association, the latter is as good as buried, and indications are that former chairman Chandu Borde has the inside track on taking over.

Another projected change is that Shivlal Yadav will be dropped a year ahead of his completing his full tenure, with Krish Srikkanth being installed in that post -- kind of to make up for his not getting the senior coaching assignment. Meanwhile, Roger Binny will in all probability become the next coach of the India A team.