Joseph Lobo

Hi,
 
BCCI should makes no difference in the name but hsould be managed by professionals who know about cricket and have some degree like MBA or Sports management vertification. Experience, honesty and dedication also counts.

thanks

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Kalyan Ganesan

All said and done about BCCI,the bottom line is the players need to perform in order for the team to win.

2 significant milestones that changed a teams fortune:

1) India won 1983 Wcup because of Team,Captain not the coach

2) Pakistan won 1992 Wcup because of Team,captain not the coach

So lets stop blaming BCCI for the coach issue and start looking into the below factors

Harbhajan isnt performing for a long time and comes up with excuses that his issue with ICC [Images] is the reason for his failure in the recent series..He should consider lucky to be allowed to bowl in the first place

Sachin coming heavily on critics and asking them what their credentials are when his best is way past and this needs to be addressed

Pathan quit dreaming that hes Wasim Akram and start working hard.

More importantly whole team compensate  for all those finals lost.

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Sriram Daita

This is what BCCI should do

1. Hire a full time CEO/President with a minimum 10 to 15 years of experience in running a major company. S/He should be allowed to develop his/her own team and a 5 year business plan within the first 6 months. The team responsibilities will be to ensure the running of all the affairs � marketing, legal, HR, accounting, major stadiums (including ground keeping, amenities for spectators etc.) and academies of the board. Before that change the name from BCCI to Cricket India.

2. A national selection panel made up of 5 permanent members should be created. I am not going to say they should be former crickets but they should be able to spot talent. Under them they should each have 5 regional scouts responsible to track each Ranji team for that regional. The regional scouts will each have a 3 scouts responsible for U12, U16, U21 players each Ranji team. All eligible players should be tracked every year in a detail statistics database.

3. A national collegiate tournament should be planned, similar to the model there is in USA. Colleges should be encouraged to participate in these tournaments. The best players are then put in a draft to be selected by the Ranji teams. This will ensure parity in the league and also make in more competitive.

4. The overall national league format should be changed as below
 a. Ranji � All team play each other twice (one home and one away). Each team will select a stadium as their home permanently. The format will be to encourage a win/loss result. The 1st innings will be 125 over at the maximum. The second innings will be 100 over at the maximum. This will allow the team to score at a faster rate while preserving wickets.
 b. Deodhar � This will be a one day tournament similar in format to (a)
 c. Duleep � This will be a 20 over tournament similar to (a)
 d. College Level � a four day and a one day game tournament at a national level. All players that represent their Ranji team, even once, become ineligible to participate in the tournament (a-c)
 e. School � U12 � two day tournaments with each team only allowed to play 90 over. U17 will be a 3 day tournament. The 1st innings will be 90 over each and the 2nd innings will be 50 over each.

5. Cricket Academy: Will enroll outstanding players from U12, U17 only. The players will be evaluated every year based on a scorecard. The cricket academy will have schooling facilities for all enrolled players. They will have a permanent coach and assistant coaches for batting, bowling (spin and pace), fielding, wicket keeping, a strength trainer, a sports doctor etc. All will report to the President of the academy who will report to the CEO directly.

6. All associations will follow the same structure of the Cricket India. Each association will have a similar state academy will be responsible for their state minor league (similar to a, b and c) college and school cricket tournaments. They will be responsible for local sponsorship etc.

7. All major teams should have a sponsorship from a major corporation. For example Mumbai Tatas, Karnataka Infosys [Get Quote] etc.

8. All major teams should have a contract system with their players.

9. All players to be eligible to play for India should play for their major teams during the year.

10. Cricket India team will have a on contract a permanent team consisting of trainer, doctor, chef (yes food is important), a manager and a coach. Minimum contract will be 5 years.

Just some thoughts

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Joe Alan

THESE ARE MY SUGGESTIONS

1. OFFICE BEARERS SHOULD HAVE MAXIMUM 2  THREE YEAR TERMS THEN NOT ELIGIBLE FOR ANY OFFICIAL POST

2. OFFICIALS TO BE ELECTED BY MEMBERS SIMILAR TO GENERAL ELECTIONS NORMS

3 SELECTIONCOMMITTEE TO BE PROFESSIONALS NOT BASED ON REGIONS TO SELECT THE BEST 11 TEAM

4. CRICKET ACADEMIES IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF INDIA TO SPOT TALENT AND NURTURE SO WE HAVE WORLD EBATERS NOT ALSO RANS

5 AUDITED ACCOUNTS EVERY YEAR AND EMBAZZLEMENT TO BE PUNISHED BY JAIL TERMS OF OFFICE BEARERS

THESE ARE FEW I WILL SNED SOME MORE

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Raj

Hi,

I am sending a list of suggestions which I feel the BCCL  should urgently take to improve its own functioning and the state of cricket in India.

First of all the BCCI should function more openly so that the air of suspicion is cleared forever. It should bear in mind that if millions of fans decide to boycott the game, then the game would be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Secondly, the BCCI should improve the training and practice facilities throughout the country. It should also tighten the screws with regard to selection of regional teams by framing proper guidelines so that the best talent is identified and nurtured for the better.

The Indian team should not be burdened with too much cricket, in the most uncomfortable periods of the year. The team should be made to play more cricket during the winter and less during the summer. ODIs should be scheduled in such a way that there should be at least 3 days between consecutive matches.

The BCCI must create more sporting wickets which can assist both spin and pace. India desperately needs a new breed of pace and spin bowlers.

The BCCI can also introduce an India Cup ODI series (with private partnership) featuring all the regional teams so that talented players are identified. It can also begin an under 22 ODI championship (40 overs max). All these on sporting wickets, not the 280-300 runs ones.

The BCCI should do away with the quota system and select the national team strictly on merit.

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Aditya Kumar

Sir,

This is in response to the "Help the BCCI clean up its act" article on rediff.com. The article can be read at:
http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/may/12msg.htm

The BCCI, it appears, is run by a handful of individuals, whose names we have been hearing since my generation of cricket lovers started following cricket. The only difference between the BCCI of 12 years old and today is the amount of money that it cultivated in the "field" of cricket and the ways of doing so.

Often these ways of making money show their ugly faces and we hear the name of BCCI cropping up for all the wrong reasons. Be it, the television rights crisis, or the issue of terming the National Cricket team as BCCI XI, the board has gone its way out to make sure that the money generated by the game is maximum. Nothing wrong in that, except that it appears ugly, unethical and not-so much like the things Cricket has been known for, in its great past.

Solutions are plenty, provided the BCCI really wants to implement them. One doubts if BCCI is serious about these things. The recent coaching issue is an example of how serious the Board is about cricket since this lost time cannot be back and all this time could have been used for rectifying the (surprising) recent slump in the team's performance.

So you see, all this talk about "Professionalism in Cricketing terms" does not only involve the people who play the game. It also should apply to the managers and administrators up there.

Talking about suggestions, Firstly, I had mentioned about 8 months back in my blog (http://truman.rediffblogs.com/2004_26_09_truman_archive.html), that BCCI could do well with a channel of its own. That would be of course, a permanent solution to this never ending problem which, strangely crops up about 8-10 days before any tour on Indian soil is about to start (and remains unresolved until 48 hours are left for the game to start).

Secondly, trust me, its annoying to see any cricketer singing an ad jingle seconds after he gets out on a duck or anything similar. 18 year old kids who break into the cricket world working miracles are lured to advertising and earning a quick buck.

Often by the next tour, a quick dip in form follows and so do the advertisements. Its unfair to expect them to stop these television performances but I think a level of maturity to stardom is needed. It might help if they have a rule which prohibits these cricketers to appear in commercials until they have at least a couple of years experience at the international level.

Thirdly, the coach needs to have a say in the team selection. It comes as a surprise to me that the coach, who is probably at par with the captain to judge individual performances is left out completely from the selection process. By eliminating the coach during team selection, the BCCI is only making things difficult for the coach. This is an issue which needs urgent consideration, thats what I feel.

Last and not the least on my mind, I think its been due for a long time that we revamp our domestic cricket culture/setup. I think its full commercial potential is yet to be tapped. I see no reason why this brand of cricket wont draw people provided its packaged in a nice way.

Here I could state examples of our neighbour, Pakistan. BCCI's counterpart there, PCB, managed to get back the crowds to cricket stadiums(almost full houses) for the games of Twenty20 [Images] cricket that were played between states. Although I am not a big supporter of Twenty20 cricket but I think if its planned and implemented the right way,  domestic one day cricket could become the next best thing after international one day cricket.

All this, provided BCCI is actually serious of improving India's brand of Cricket. If not, I would say, hope is less.

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C.R. Prasad
 
Sir,

The BCCI, in my opinion should adopt the following 10-points immediately to ensure the maintenance and growth in popularity of India's most popular game:

1. Draw up the international schedules atleast 6-9 months prior to the starting date so that the domestic season can be sheduled accordingly.

2. Introduce ticket sales to each and every domestic match so that these matches receive more recognition than they are getting presently. also ensure that these matches are held in Test/ODI grounds that have very good facilities.

3. Start and also direct each State association to start a channel of its own wherein each and every domestic match taking place in the country can be telecast live by the respective channels.

4. Introduce 20/20 format in the domestic season and get rid of the current Deodhar trophy; the current Ranji trophy ODI tournament can be renamed Deodhar Trophy.

5. Host more and more 5 and 6-Test series at the cost of ODIs. the revenue generated by 20/20 matches can more than compensate for the revenue lost from not hosting ODIs...Also Test cricket wud no longer continue to suffer as a poorer cousin of ODI cricket.

6. Organize an awards function at the end of every domestic season along the lines of Australia's [Images] Allan Border [Images] Medal to recognize quality performances.

7. Organize more cricket(preferably night cricket) during the summer months from May to July/August. It could be a 20/20 cup involving retired first-class/international cricketers or a 4-day 40 overs per day single innings format where the team that has the highest no. of runs per wicket will be declared the winner. This tournament will not only encourage good defensive batting but it will also provide the spinners an oppurtunity to flight the ball in pursuit of wickets since now they need not worry about containment.

8. Instill a sense of pride in the Indian cricket fan by highlighting India's major cricketing achievements/moments and the pioneers who fashioned them through interviews, highlight packages, quizzes etc.

9. Direct each and every board to officially release the attendance figures for each and every international/ domestic match it hosts; as it happens in the EPL or in Australian cricket. This will not only help BCCI to identify those regions where the game is less popular but also help the board in studying the growth of the sport across the country over a period of time.

10. And...last but not the least, it should become a fully professional body run preferably by MBAs who will bring in  accountability into the system so that each and every cricket fan knows how the BCCI is earning and spending each and every rupee.

Thanks for the oppurtunity.

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Mail your comments to cricket@rediff.co.in

More responses:
'Former players should head BCCI'
'BCCI should have own TV channel'

Also read: Help the BCCI clean up its act