The giant broom of the BCCI

In terms of suspense, the run-up to the BCCI's 2015 annual general meeting came a close second behind the build-up to the release of the new James Bond movie. This was to be the second Annual General Meeting inside a year. An old president had died suddenly; a new leader had emerged following many cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. This AGM marked the end of the new president's one-month deadline to Sort Things Out.

Shashank Manohar, Indian cricket's own M, moved swiftly. With one hand he dislodged a powerful, shadowy figure - let's call him NS - from the highest perch in international cricket governance. With the other, he sent a broom around his offices, making his presence known.

The appointment of an ombudsman to examine the BCCI's conduct is like the arrival of Judge Dredd, but the board's previous invitations to legal eminences have ended badly.

The Justice Chandrachud commission, set up in 1997 to investigate allegations of betting and match-fixing among players, said nothing of the sort ever happened. Shortly after followed Hansie Cronje. In May 2013, two retired High Court judges appointed to a panel to look into the IPL spot-fixing scandal found no wrongdoing by IPL owners accused of chatting up bookies. Two days later the Bombay High Court declared that the very establishment of that panel had been carried out "illegally". Then came the Supreme Court and the Mudgal committee and the Lodha committee.

Manohar, a lawyer himself, knows better than to annoy judges. His latest interactions with the judiciary have marked a break from the BCCI's traumatic recent experiences in the Supreme Court chambers of justices Patnaik, Thakur and Kalifullah.

A day before he was appointed BCCI president, Manohar met Justice Lodha, who heads the commission authorised to suggest a restructuring of the BCCI's administration and indeed of its constitutional framework. In Justice AP Shah, the BCCI's ombudsman, Manohar has brought on board a man described as a "rock star" in the legal community. (Greatest hit, "Jailhouse Rock"?)

The board's enormously entangled conflict-of-interest case studies should amuse the judge, who has dealt with far more complicated matters pertaining to the death penalty, gay rights, tax laws, broadcast rights and more in a distinguished career. His presence as the BCCI's ethics officer should shake things up at the board's roots.

At the AGM there was resistance, including from Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association boss Jyotiraditya Scindia, to the presence not just of an ombudsman but also to the introduction of three independent members on a trimmed IPL governing council. Scindia is believed to have said that the BCCI had to move to clean its own house and give the world a demonstration of its ability to thoroughly self-regulate. What is known for sure is the BCCI has exhausted most of the benefit of doubt given to it. An ombudsman is how far it will go; the three independent members on the governing council may never show up.

At the AGM, the board's first emphatic steps dealing with conflict of interest ended up being - no disrespect to the individuals concerned - about low-hanging fruit. Big names, easy pickings, great media attention. The decisions were made when they were, it is explained, not merely to grab the headlines but because new committees had to be formed at the AGM, keeping in mind the new guidelines proposed and laid down largely by Manohar. Given that the positions of each of these individuals was well known, they went first.

So Anil Kumble, detached from the technical committee, will now use his enormous capabilities to benefit the Ambani empire. Ravi Shastri is much more fun in his hard-talking-competitor avatar as Indian team director these days, rather than as a member of a nebulous, non-functional IPL governing council that made quite a hash of governing.

Sourav Ganguly (no doubt BCCI boss one day in the future) has forsaken TV and chosen to dive into the thick of administration, as a member of the BCCI technical committee and the IPL governing council, in addition to his role as president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. While he can be excellent and entertaining behind the mike, the commentary caravan bores him.

Roger Binny has been replaced as selector with a year still left in his term, due to the fact that his son Stuart is currently in the mix. Binny Sr's only failing is that Binny Jr is good enough to be considered among the country's top 25 players. Binny Sr happens to be among the country's top selectors, a specialised and tough field of expertise. Their choices are vital to the growth and development of the Indian team.

Manohar explained the situation by saying that the "perception" of the BCCI being rife with conflict of interest had to change. "There should not be injustice on Stuart Binny also… If he is a deserving player he should not get flak from media that because he is Roger Binny's son he is playing. We can't destroy his career also."

Conflict of interest is about the "possibility of bias" rather than actual acts of bias. The board has pushed for this visibly hard line with respect to Binny because of the elasticity in defining actual acts of bias. Selectors from previous committees complained how one chief would rather grandly promise to recuse himself when his son's name came up for discussion. He wasn't trying to advertise his objectivity but rather issuing a broad hint to his colleagues to bring the boy's name into the meeting. This when the son was not close to being front-runner material.

The more prominent cases taken care of, the BCCI officials are themselves going through a period of "voluntary disclosure". Now that the new norms have been circulated to individuals, those who find themselves in positions of conflict can come forward, inform the board, and find a way to resolve the conflict or seek another solution.

It is here that things get vague. What happens if there are no satisfactory solutions? A complaint can be made to the ombudsman. What if it isn't? Can Backscratchers Inc suddenly turn into Governance Central?

This is where Manohar and Thakur are in for the long arm-wrestle. Manohar has sought to trim the size of the board's committees, reducing the memberships to no more than seven or eight each. The BCCI has more than 20 committees. The previous marketing committee featured 29 members, and the museum committee 18. For every meeting attended, each official receives an allowance of around Rs 25,000 per day. Cash. Won't the BCCI's voter-happiness index drop considerably if it cuts down the number of beneficiaries by trimming the committees?

Manohar and Thakur's balancing act is to hope that the spectre of the Lodha committee report in December terrifies most errant members into falling in line. Or else.

An issue the AGM did settle was to confirm that N Srinivasan, the one-time il Capo dei Capi of world cricket, was in many ways the architect of his own exit. Given a long-ish rope by the new administration from March this year, with a promise of "no vindictiveness", Srinivasan launched a series of broadsides to undercut those in power. To begin with, there was a public spat with the new secretary, Thakur, followed by the adjournment of a working committee meeting due to Srinivasan's insistence on attending it as chief of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. There was a meeting with former BCCI chief Sharad Pawar on the eve of an election to choose a successor following the death of Jagmohan Dalmiya. Then came a perjury case against Thakur, which was later withdrawn.

BCCI officials say that they ran into slow-moving paperwork at the ICC level, starting with issues like the selection of venues for next year's World T20. This from the office of the man who was sitting in the chair he occupied only on the goodwill of the BCCI. Which has now dissolved into contempt. Time for the director to signal: exit NS.

In Indian cricket's long-running pantomime, Srinivasan is a character sent off stage. This does not mean he cannot or will not return. The rest of the play has only just begun.