With its own house in disarray and good judgment the need of the hour, the BCCI has again efficiently managed to portray itself as the villain of the piece when it comes to the vexed issue of India's upcoming South Africa tour. What's worse, the BCCI doesn't seem to care about its public image.
Maybe it's the absence of any foresight in the BCCI's dealings. The reasons for BCCI's differences with Lorgat are many - though none official - but what is shocking is that the Indian board seems ready to sacrifice a rich tradition of cricketing history between two nations without a moment's thought.
In fact, the India-SA cricketing bonhomie transcends the game and extends to issues of race and a mutual disdain of (racially) oppressive regimes. The irony is lost on the BCCI.
The bonhomie lasted till India's last tour in 2010-11, when a T20 game at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban marked the 150th anniversary of the arrival of indentured-labourer Indians in Natal. India is the first non-white cricketing nation to tour SA, in what was famously termed "the friendship series".
The efforts of India, a strong anti-apartheid campaigner, ensured SA's return to the ICC fold. When a Pakistan tour was cancelled, Clive Rice's team visited India in 1991 at a moment's notice. The love for both India and SA among the diaspora there is nowhere more apparent than at the cricket ground. The success of the IPL in 2009 - although the fallout wasn't too healthy for the CSA - was evidence enough.
Yet, now we have supposed differences over petty issues causing the world body's (ICC) Future Tours Programme serious embarrassment. Does BCCI's confrontational attitude (even before Lorgat's appointment, it allegedly threatened to remove CSA's 20% stake in the CL T20) arise from Lorgat's time at the ICC when he insisted England's World Cup match be removed from the Eden?
Or is it Lorgat's decision to nip India's 'version' of the FTP in the bud after his ICC appointment? Or the Woolf Report? Or the WADA issue? Or simply Lorgat's unwillingness to bend?
It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. What matters is that by putting out vague whispers about broadcast revenues dropping due to lack of home contests, and denying Indian fans by curtailing the timeframe for the SA tour, the BCCI has appeared to behave in the only way the world assumes it behaves: as a vindictive mercenary.
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