Going by media reports, the crude sexist comments on the Koffee Along with Karan chat-show telecast on January 6 were all made by Hardik Pandya and not by his fellow-interviewee K L Rahul who, whenever asked about his relationships, kept a level head on his shoulders and answered every question carefully.
So it does seem not just illogical but illegal for Rahul to be given the same quantum of punishment as Pandya in terms of being suspended from not just the three one-day internationals in Australia but the subsequent ODI and T20 series in New Zealand.
Media reports indicate that Vinod Rai, the chairman of the Committee of Administrators (CoA, which is overseeing the functioning of the BCCI as per the Supreme Trial judgment), wanted Pandya and Rahul to be banned from the principal two ODIs in Australia but that his fellow administrator Diana Edulji wanted harsher punishment following an inquiry.
The moot point is when an inquiry was needed since all the evidence was available for the form of the chat-show which had been telecast. However, Master of science Edulji wanted an inquiry and she was supported in her request by the three acting office-bearers of the BCCI (the president, secretary and treasurer) who may have felt this was a good chance to hit back at Mr Rai who had stopped them from flying at the board’s expense to attend the ODI series through England last summer.
For her part, Ms Rai felt she obtained been snubbed by Mr Rai who had used his position mainly because CoA chairman to over-rule her when she wanted Ramesh Powar to be able to continue as the coach of the women’s national team. With each the CoA members communicating with each other through emails which had been subsequently leaked, there is a perception that the disputing administrators may have felt that the Koffee With Karan chat-show gave them the opportunity to hit back at Mr Rai.
Ms Edulji has nowadays demanded an inquiry, with the subsequent punitive judgment to be supplied by a temporary ombudsman. Everything from who will conduct the query to who will be the temporary ombudsman seems to be a good issue, with Ms Edulji taking a diametrically opposite stand from Mister Rai.
The acting BCCI office-bearers seem to be playing along by using Ms Edulji and fishing in troubled waters, with one of these people, according to The Times Of India (TOI), even going to the particular extent of suggesting that Pandya and Rahul be banned for an important year and citing the 12-month ban imposed on Smith and Warner for asking their team-mate Bancroft to rough up the cricket shot by rubbing sandpaper on it during the third Test match during Cape Town in South Africa on March 24, 2018. Can the particular two be equated?
According to TOI, Ms Edulji even cited the exact instance of the legendary all-rounder Lala Amarnath being sent back designed for “insubordination†from India’s 1936 tour of England by the then captain, the Maharaja of Vizianagaram, or Vizzy as he was known.
So should Indian cricket in 2019 be taken back to the thirties days of courtly, darbari intrigues when the maharajas were mismanaging typically the show even though the likes of Vizzy did not deserve to play in the national team let alone captain the side!
Compare this with the mature manner in which the England Cricket Panel (ECB) allowed the all-rounder Ben Stokes to play in the five-Test series against India in England in the summer of 2018 actually while there was an ongoing court-hearing against him for knocking outside two men during a late-night brawl in Bristol in 2017. Stokes was subsequently acquitted of the more serious charges.
It is clear that Pandya and Rahul are being used as pawns in the ongoing tussle in the CoA. One can only sympathize with Rahul who did not make any of the crude, sexist comments Pandya did.
Again, as another TOI report points out, there is basically no BCCI inquiry of any kind against the national T20 women’s squad captain Harmanpreet Kaur who was demoted by the Punjab government coming from her rank as DSP (deputy superintendent of police) following an bringing of charges that she had submitted a fake graduation-degree certificate. Ms Edulji previously had recently supported Ms Kaur’s demand that Ramesh Powar be allowed in order to continue as the coach of the national women’s team but these had been over-ruled by the CoA chairman Mr Rai.
At a good time when K L Rahul has lost his form, his career is now endangered, following the telecast of the Koffee With Karan chat-show
What could have been dealt with firmly and quickly includes now been converted into a cyclone in a coffee cup!