BCCI President Roger Binny On A Sticky Wicket!

Roger Binny is on a sticky wicket. A genuine all-rounder who manipulated the red cherry in an expert way, bagged plenty of wickets and played his part in India’s 1983 Prudential World Cup win, has been issued a Conflict of Interest (COI) notice by the BCCI’s Ethics Officer, Vineet Saran. Binny, 67, was elected unopposed as the president of the BCCI in October. He succeeded former India captain Sourav Ganguly. He has been asked to reply to the COI related notice before December 20. The apparent reason for the COI charge is that his daughter-in- law Mayanti Langer has a contract with Star Sports, the COI rule which is part of Justice Lodha’s Reforms in Cricket report, is seen now as a nuisance by the administrators and people in general are appalled that a non-controversial person like Binny has to face the charge at the instance of vested interests. A former senior functionary of the BCCI, Prof. Ratnakar Shetty says: “The COI rules need to be reviewed in the interest of BCCI.’’ He believes many cricketers are deprived the opportunity to be part of the cricket administration at the State and National level. Recently the BCCI got relief for a number of issues related to the governance aspect from the Supreme Court. The time has arrived for the COI rule to be reviewed and the Apex Court appointed Amicus to step in.