CoA awaiting Supreme Court ruling on former players who serve as commentators

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the ‘conflict of interest’ issue generated by BCCI members regarding the role played by former India cricketers as commentators across various global media outlets. The Committee of Administrators (CoA) is of the opinion that the order issued by the BCCI Ombudsman and Ethics Officer Justice (Retd.) DK Jain, with conflict of interest charges against Sachin Tendulkar (he was cleared), Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, is ‘rigid’.

The SC-appointed body added that if the order is indeed implemented, around 20 Indian commentators will be out contention for a job and the BCCI will have no option but to hire former players from overseas. It is learnt that the Supreme Court-appointed Committee has decided to place the matter before the court to seek certain clarifications.

“The CoA thinks that it (the order) is very rigid; the interpretation of a commentator. Commentators are commentators, being used by the BCCI. Somebody is doing vernacular commentary, somebody is with Star, some other player is writing for vernacular papers. In this way, the CoA has to dump 20 of our own people and hire Ricky Ponting, for example, or somebody else from overseas,” a source close to the CoA told The Indian Express.