There are two things one just cant leave outta Indian cricket - MONEY and CONTROVERSIES. It more often than not happens that both are interlinked and one is the tumor causing cell of the cancer. Well friends, my first article for Cricketfundas.com will give you guys a hint of how Indian cricket has been maladministered by incapable industrialists and bureaucrats, which is nothing different from running the country itself. Also a special mention will be made on the Bribery Scandal and why only ABHIJIT KALE's neck is weighing on the gallows !

CORRUPTION in Cricket ? Yes - that’s the only menace the cricket world needs to sort out immediately. I just can't think of any country's cricket board not being corrupt, but leading the most corrupt cricket administrative setups is India without a shadow of the doubt element. Gone are the days when the munimji (treasurer) of the cricket board would issue a joint press conference with the President to announce the annual turnover. Nowadays, right from the top brass to the groundsman, the transparency factor is just fading away. With the current Board President having pending court charges in the Kolkata High Court...it seems so unlikely that the board will be run with an inch of professionalism as what we can see in Cricket Australia or England and Wales Cricket Board. Yet, as governments with corrupt ministers remain in power, the sheer public image of the man has given him an additional term. Does he deserve one ? I guess its time for cricketers to rule over cricketers. I for one feel that the top most wing of the BCCI needs to be reshuffled with able administrators and not frauds whose companies have made stringent losses before !

After the top wing, comes the Selection Committee....which for me looks a dicey, clever and a body which doesn’t go beyond the regional boundaries. This, for me looks the root cause of the Bribery Scandal. In a squad representations are made on influential bias and zone-based vested interest. Again, the transparency factor is missing. Why on earth, will the secretary of a board who has no idea about the criteria of selection, announce a press conference without underlining the causes of certain high-profile and baffling selection errors? The setup itself is a mystic and mysterious one, where the common man needs to imbibe his 'rather-weak' political knowledge to find answers...The entire thing seems to me as nonchalant and the time has come, when the selection committee takes responsibility for its acts of indifference and let the people knows about the omissions and inclusions.

Now... a ray of light onto the Kalegate (bribery scandal). I know Abhijit Kale for quite some time...as far as i can remember, post-Dhaka cup. He has been a good personal friend of mine, who used to speak to me quite often before he played a first-class match or even a Times Shield game. I have also shared a train ride and a rickshaw ride with him and he never looked to me an inch of what he is being portrayed as. I spoke to him last just before he left for Rajkot for the Ranji Plate Match Vs Saurashtra. It was just a general conversation, and we spoke nothing about the team selections for both India A and India. According to me, the timing of the entire episode is baffling by itself. Why would a person, who hasn’t been selected for the India A team, bribe 2 selectors for a place in the Indian team for a place in the already jam-packed middle order ? It really defies all logics. It shows to what extent the administration can go to shorten a promising domestic career of an individual. Now, a minister was exposed by a video tape as a concrete evidence...do we have anything of that sort here ? No...and have the selectors substantiated their accusations ? No. It seems a totally immature move on the part of Dalmiya to ask them to give in writing. Well...if that's the case, I'd keep on accusing them for their maladministration and GIVE THE PAPER IN WRITING.

Back to Kale, I would remember the man for his humility and simplicity than the media's version about him. He is from a middle class family in Thane, a suburb in which I am based at. He was a person who gave due to his merits rather than what he earned. Once in the train, where I met him for the first time when I asked him "Aap train mein kya kar rahe ho ?" he laughed at me and said "I can show the world by being the first Indian cricketer to travel by train" and he was proud in saying so. He also told me, that playing for India once, be it against Bangladesh was a greater honour than anything else. It seemed like a long journey in first class cricket for Abhijit...cut short by some baseless and farce allegations by Mr. More and Mr. Roy.

Well, if the BCCI wins the battle against Kale, it shows their immature and corrupt methods of handling controversies. If Kale wins the case, well, Kale is anytime free to ask for 20 lakhs from the two selectors and a few lakhs/millions more from all those who defamed him...and become a millionaire in just a day. So everything is against the BCCI...however they win or lose, they can't veil themselves from the embarrassment of being the most corrupt cricket board in the World !