Spirit of Cricket

   The recent Colin Cowdery lecture by Kumar Sangakkara at Lord"s has fired a bullet in the right direction. The speech has touched a chord among many and has left the whole world talking,thus becoming a hot news today.From a british woman who knows her cricket,it simply said" Sangakkara is making me cry". It galvanised millions of people across the globe ans has put brakes on the acceleration of Politics.

   Can Sports bodies remain aloof from Politics? The answer to this is a sublime "YES". Recently, the ICC has taken a firm stance on depoloticising all Cricket boards else the boards have to face dire consequences,thus prompting ICC to dissolve it. That means cricket boards from Pakistan,Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have to conduct elections instead of running an interim committee appointed by the Sports Ministry. That implies the Government has to abdicate the boards from its authority barring the security.

    Recent doping scandals have shocked the Indian Athletic Association and ultimately to the whole of India.To add to the woes,the response from the cardinals and coaches have been truly atrocious. Thanks to Ajay Maken,the Sports Minister of India ,for taking effective steps which will decide the fate of Indian Athletics in due course of time.Sports bodies do need urgent reforms.

    Its not the administration or the players but the cricket loving public that sustain the game. If they loose the interest, the game will surely be in a major crisis.Games need to be protected from narrow self interest and thus root out corruption. We have to aspire to a better administration which will adopt the values of integrity,transparency,committment and discipline, as rightly pointed out by Kumar Sangakkara.