Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

the people who are successful come from the wealthy upper classes. So it’s not, you know, a game of the people in that sense. Ric was able to see some games in the first season of the Indian Premier League [IPL], one of the most visible signs of the deluge of money that had flooded into cricket. The local team in Chandigarh was the Punjab Kings, coached by his fellow West Australian, Tom Moody. He was also able to discuss the new phenomenon over dinner with John Buchanan, when the team he was coaching, the Kolkata Knight Riders, came to play there. Ric was unimpressed by the new competition as a cricket event, but as a media event it certainly had traction. The ‘weird thing’ was that many of the owners of the new ‘franchises’ were celebrities without prior connections to the game. He wondered how ‘things will go in difficult economic times: I assume TV rights prop the thing up.’ And now in 2009 – in the wake of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai – ‘they’re playing in South Africa. Who cares? Who’s paying any attention?’ What Ric couldn’t know during his period in India was that this transfer of the second season of the IPL to South Africa raised questions about the BCCI’s privileges as a charitable trust. According to the indiatimes website, the ‘BCCI will have to take specific permission of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to enjoy the same tax exemption if the “charitable activity” is held outside India, as per the provisions of the I-T laws.’ 40 In mid-2009 the situation was still unclear. Another report revealed that the Income-Tax [I-T] department has already cancelled the registration of Punjab Cricket Association [PCA] as a trust. The registration of PCA, one of the state cricket bodies affiliated to BCCI, was cancelled following a hearing held after it received a notice from the I-T department, said BCCI treasurer M.P. Pandove. On the other hand, ‘BCCI [itself] has not received any such notice from the Income-Tax department for cancellation of registration, added Pandove.’ 41 2002-2009 89 40 ‘BCCI may lose tax waiver as IPL moves out’, www.economictimes.indiatimes.com , 25 March 2009. 41 ‘New Guidelines to check tax evasion by charitable trusts’, www.livemint.com , 27 May 2009.