MS Dhoni is now in controversy for "conflict of interest" in a sports firm which manages his interests. Now media has questioned that he owned 15% of shares in the firm and besides MS, the firm Rhiti sports also managed:
- RP Singh
- Pragyan Ojha
- Suresh Raina and
- Ravindra Jadeja
Suresh Raina often picks himself up in T20I and ODIs, but in Tests he is not an automatic selection. Other than Raina, only Jadeja is Dhoni's favorite and the firm managing Jaddu boy could be one of the reason why now Jadeja plays all 3 formats with limited ability and minimal returns.
Ojha and RP Singh aren't MS's favorites exactly. But Jadeja is and he has been spoken of preferred in England as well for a place in XI for CT13. Defies logic, but this relation could be one of the reason why Jadeja might edge Pathan and play all games even though the conditions in England will not favor 2 spinners.
Rhiti sports also managed marketing of Chennai Super Kings. And Jadeja is a star player (on $ value he fetches) for CSK. Media reports do allege that this sports firm might be reason why Jadeja got the amount he gets in IPL. But there can be never a confirmation or total denial on the facts that Jadeja always finds a place in the team because of his ties with Srinivasan and Dhoni.
In the current skeptic ties and heated environment, where even a small "conflict of interest" or a slight negative news runs the potential of being made a breaking news, such disclosures are not in Indian cricket's interest.
There are always a couple of players whose selection is always questioned and doubted no matter who the captain is and what era it is. Not going too far, when Sachin was the captain in 2000 and before that, he was accused of giving chances to Vinod Kambli. Ganguly was accused of favoring players like Harbhajan, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Kaif, Zaheer etc who were of limited capabilities. Selection committees have been accussed of bringing in the players out of the so called quota system. Ganguly himself was alleged to be part of that quota system when he was selected for England tour in 1996 right after the world cup.
Dilip Vengsarkar always gave chances to players from Mumbai when he was head of selection committee. Kris Srikanth always got Chennai players handy when anyone got injured in the national team. In 1990s it was accused that Karnataka sent in a lot of undeserved players in the national team. They were powerful in 1990s in the domestic circuit and the team always had 4 or 5 players in the playing XI. While nobody doubted the quality and temparament of Dravid, Kumble and Srinath, the core members, but there were few dubious selections like Noel David (Noel who ?), David Johnson, Sujith Somsunder, Sunil Joshi (he never utilised his potential), Venkatesh Prasad (the man assumed to be the culprit for all pacers suddenly losing their pace) etc.
The root of all the evils in the current scenario come from one single source -- N Srinivasan. Times of India reports that he was the man behind BCCI gagging Dilip Vengsarkar when he used to write the syndicated columns while being a chief national selector. He also got Sharad Pawar remove that committee on the fact that the selectors were also the office bearers of state associations.
But when he took over the BCCI presidency, he conveniently forgot that he also owns the CSK franchisee in IPL and he got BCCI to amend the constitution for that. Sharad Pawar's double speak was exposed a few days back when he spoke on the current mess. Srini also forgot that he had made the chief selector K Srikanth, the brand ambassador of his franchisee. He was holding both posts together. And as soon as he completed his term, Srikanth was kicked out of the CSK fold. Later he joined Sunrisers Hyderabad, whose owners are Tamil from Karunanidhi family.
Their conflict of interest was also exposed again when they owned SRH and allowed a SL to be their captain, while on the same hand, their parent political party DMK opposed any SL player playing in Chennai during IPL-6 due to the political issues between TN and SL.
Coming back to the Dhoni issue, the media also suggests that many players have been dropped from the team without giving fair opportunities. TOI names Tiwary, Mishra, Dhawal Kulkarni, Saurabh Tiwary, Parthiv Patel among a few. While Manoj Tiwary's case has been correct, the others did just not click whenever they played for India. Saurabh Tiwary was the part of the team that travelled to Zimbabwe in 2010 under Raina, but could not click. Dhawal Kulkarni at his best is a mediocre bowler. And Mishra had a horrible England tour, irony is that he made it again to the CT team, but its very unlikely he will play.
So at its best, it is very difficult to prove the conflicts of interest of MSD with Rhiti sports, but it also provides yet another opportunity for media to find a scapegoat after Srinivasan episode is over. We have not yet seen the end of IPL mess, a lot more skeletons shall tumble in the coming days and the SOURCED news shall give media to make merry on the cost of Indian cricket.
