Why they are now going down like nine pins

Bansuri

In what looks like an implosion in Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), its treasurer and secretary quit on Friday and its vice-presidents readied to follow suit, thus foreclosing options for N Srinivasan to continue as president of the BCCI over the spot-fixing and betting scandal that has rocked Indian cricket. A Srinivasan's term as president ends in September, when the next AGM is scheduled.

On Friday, Ajay Shirke, the treasurer of BCCI, and its secretary, Sanjay Jagdale, resigned from their posts, while all five vice-presidents of the BCCI - Arun Jaitley, Shivlal Yadav, Chitrak Mitra, Niranjan Shah, Sudhir Dabir, are understood to be preparing to put in their papers.A At the BCCI's emergency meeting scheduled for next week, one can expect more fireworks, as at least 24 of the 30 full members of the board are expected to be present, including representatives of state boards like Arun Jaitley and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

As things stand, the working committee meeting cannot vote out the board president, since he is an elected functionary. But the working committee can, at its meeting, ask for a special Annual General Meeting to be called, where he can be voted out. A Things took a turn for the worse on Friday, with the board's members falling like nine pins, when word went round that the anti-corruption wing of ICC contacted Chennai Super Kings' Gurunath Meiyappan in early April of 2013. According to a news channel, sources in Mumbai police "confirmed" this.

The logical question that followed was: Whether ICC ACSU was aware of Guru's link with Vindoo Dara who is accused in match fixing scandal. A Yet another news channel reported that transcripts show Gurunath telling Vindoo Dara Singh that ICC had warned the BCCI about him and links with bookies. The ICC warning came soon after IPL 6 started. The transcripts also show Meiyappan warning Vindoo to be careful about his dealings. They also show him instructing Vindoo about specific runs in an over.

With police sources mentioning that Meiyappan was warned right when the IPL began, questions were raised on why would Srinivasan be not aware of it, considering that he is an ICC director. The irony is that even on Friday a defiant Srinivasan flatly denied any knowledge of the ICC warning to Meiyappan. "I am not resigning," was the BCCI chief's refrain.

Officially, BCCI still has the gall to put up a brave front. The board clarified that it had not been told by ICC regarding the world body's reported warning to betting accused Gurunath Meiyappan to keep away from bookies at the start of IPL 6. It is not surprising that BCCI chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty's statement to the media that ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit chief Y P Singh was present during the board's Emergent Working Committee Meeting in Chennai on May 19 and that he did not share any such information was taken with a pinch of salt by scribes. A Although there has been no confirmation from ICC yet on the warning to Gurunath, little was left to imagination in the wake of Friday's fast-paced developments.

If there were any lingering doubts that the rot has set in at deeper levels of the sport and at higher levels of the administering bodies of cricket, they were cleared with master blaster and the 'God of cricket' Sachin Tendulkar himself breaking his Sphinx-like silence and commenting: "It hurts when the game of cricket is in the news for the wrong reasons. The developments in the last two weeks have been shocking and disappointing."