Former treasurer Kishore Rungta slams BCCI for saying they need money to run cricket in the wake of Lodha Panel's objection to the disbursement of funds to state associations
Kishore Rungta (left) with then BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya at a Board meeting on December 25, 2002 in Kolkata. Pic/AFP
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Kishore Rungta, who handled the finances of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as its Honorary Treasurer from 1998-99 to 2002-03, is stunned by claims that the Board has no money to go ahead with the India vs New Zealand home series.
Certain sections of the media reported yesterday that the Board would cancel the ongoing Test series since the Lodha Panel has frozen BCCI's bank accounts. However, Lodha clarified that it had only objected to the disbursement of funds to the state associations and that cricket should go on.
Meanwhile, BCCI president Anurag Thakur told the media that he did not want to speculate as to whether the New Zealand series would go ahead, but said, "We can't run the game without money."
Rungta (65) told mid-day from Jaipur yesterday: "The Board has plenty of money and even if the accounts are so called seized, they can borrow from their state associations which have plenty of funds. To say that we cannot host matches and our cricket will suffer is so foolish. Why are they crying foul?"
BCCI must toe the line
Rungta opined that the BCCI would be better off adhering to the Lodha reforms and move on. "Lodha Committee has come to stay. Whether it they (reforms) are right or wrong is irrelevant now. The sooner they are implemented the better, unless you go to Parliament and change the law. Or tell the Supreme Court that you want to approach and larger bench, or petition the President of India to reconsider the matter. However, I don't know whether all this is possible because a Supreme Court judgment is fait accompli. I don't understand why they are dilly-dallying. They will have to fall in line," said Rungta.
Rungta apportioned blame on former BCCI president N Srinivasan for the current mess: "The opportunity for discussion has been lost. The Board would not have been in such a mess had Srinivasan stepped down (after the spot fixing controversy broke out 2013). They had to pull him out of his chair."
For him, the Srinivasan years caused irreparable damage. "The fabric and spirit of the Board's constitution was lost. And once that was lost, it was a case of 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.'
They built the Board
Rungta is saddened to see an institution which he and his Rajasthan-based family was an integral part of (his late father PM Rungta was once the BCCI president, his brother Kishen was a chief selector) in a mess. "This tree (BCCI) was nursed by three people —MA Chidambaram, the Maharaja of Baroda and my late father. Then of course was Jagmohan Dalmiya, who brought in money and dynamism. Their contribution has been large. BCCI meetings used to take place either at SPIC House (Chennai), Rungta House (Mumbai) or Baroda House (Delhi) where the officials stayed in so that money was saved. The Board did not have funds those days.
"There was a time when SPIC House and Rungta House were mortgaged so that guarantee money could be paid to visiting teams like the Marylebone Cricket Club (an England team used to be called the MCC till the 1970s)." That was of course long ago when the spirit of cricket administration formed the arteries of the Cricket Control Board — a far cry from the current shambles.
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