Needless suspense over Code of Conduct

The suspense over the much publicised Code of Conduct is over - for the time being. For some time now there has been a lot of speculation as to the contents of the proposed document which did arouse considerable interest. In the wake of the match fixing scandal, the Board of Control for Cricket in India had come up with various do's and dont's. Over the years, agreements between the players and the BCCI were generally considered to be one sided in favour of the the latter. The proposed code of conduct, with a number of stringent additional clauses, made it even more so. The three member committee formed to frame the code were to meet at Mumbai on July 24, review the clauses and present the finished product to the Union Sports Minister SS Dhindsa on August 1.

That was the way things were planned. However the schedule went haywire. First one of the members of the committee Ashok Kumbhat, the secretary of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, could not attend the meeting since he was indisposed. Kishore Rungta, convenor of the committee, told reporters that the members would be meeting again in Delhi on July 30 before the draft was submitted to the Sports Minister on August 1. The point was that the second meeting at New Delhi was not scheduled to take place initially.

Naturally there were reports that the BCCI was getting cold feet in case the government came down heavily over some of the clauses in the proposed Code of Conduct. There were also reports that the Board was under duress from the government regarding the draft. BCCI secretary JY Lele however dismissed such reports. He struck to his favourites phrase. ``We are an autonomous body. We will finalise the code and submit it to the government.''

Yes, the draft will be submitted to the government but not on August 1. It will now be discussed at the Board's working committee meeting at Bangalore on August 19 and then shown to the Sports Ministry. But Board president AC Muthiah has been careful in stating that any suggestions made by the government would be presented to the working committee, which would have a final say in the matter. For his part, Dhindsa, mixing spice with the flavour, said the government would not be interfering with the working of the BCCI, but added ``at this stage.'' He added the government did not have any specific ideas on what the code should contain.

So far the Code of Conduct has already acquired the contours of a top secret document, the kind of which are normally associated with wartime. Well, it actually has been a battle of sorts between the Board and the Sports Ministry. So for the time being, only the Vision Report, a sort of blueprint for Indian cricket over the next five years, will be presented to the government on Tuesday. But the Code of Conduct draft will continue to be in the news. The Board's wishy washy approach has seen to it that the suspense is needlessly prolonged.