Dalmiya and the new broom

I read, on Cricinfo, that the BCCI has “initiated Operation Clean-Up” — and I was so impressed.

Were you not? A clean-up, even if it is only ‘initiated’, is good, no? Particularly when Jagmohan Dalmiya, who wields this particular broom, had pessimistically said the day he took charge that there are no instant solutions?

More impressive than the initiation is how wide-ranging it is, this ‘Operation Vacuum Cleaner’.

• No more apres-match parties (Chirayu Amin said the same thing over three years ago)
• No more cheerleaders
• No more strange faces in dugouts (Lalit Modi said that when he chucked Shah Rukh out in season 2)
• Strict code of conduct in place (Since there is already a code of conduct in place, make that ‘stricter’)
• No selectors to have ties with any franchise (Oh wait, apparently BCCI officials and such still can — a significant omission, but let’s not carp)
• Players and support staff to provide their cellphone numbers to BCCI ahead of the IPL (Strange, I thought the BCCI would know how to contact players and officials already, but hey — still not carping)
• Possible jamming of cellphone towers in the vicinity of stadia during matches (Oh you poor fish, the best bookies and gamblers operate off of the TV screen — but I am still not carping)

So that is a fairly comprehensive laundry list of measures, no, if you ignore my parenthetical carps? So where is the problem?

Here. Had you forgotten this? (Emphasis added):

“Mr. N Srinivasan announced that he will not discharge his duties as the president of the board till such time that the probe is completed. Till such time, Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya will conduct the day to day affairs of the board,” the BCCI said in a release after a meeting of its working committee in Chennai on Sunday.

So, in case this needs underlining: Jagmohan Dalmiya is in temporary charge. N Srinivasan steps right back in as soon as the inquiry committee is done with its probe — and the time frame fixed was two months, so we are talking end-July/early-August.

Even if the probe is still not complete, the next BCCI election is scheduled for September — and that is when the board members get to either elect Srinivasan for a second term, or pick a new president (In the best traditions of democracy, BCCI-style, the results of the election are already known: the president in waiting is Arun Jaitley).

Either way, Jagmohan Dalmiya’s tenure has till September to run. No more. And the next edition of the IPL, with or without cheerleaders, is only in 2014.

So why are these ‘measures’ worth the internet bandwidth it took to put them up for public consumption?

(I am only asking. Not carping.)