Former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai became a household name with his audit reports accusing the Manmohan Singh government of causing ‘notional’ losses of an extraordinary magnitude to the state exchequer through its allocation policy of 2G spectrum and coal mining licences, and in conducting the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Rai defended his methodology of calculating losses against severe criticism. Yet, inexplicably, the man hailed as a courageous crusader shied away from rooting out 
corruption from cricket.

Ostensibly, Rai’s past prompted the Supreme Court, in January 2017, to make him the Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief to reform the Indian Cricket Board, or BCCI, which was reeling under the 2013 spot-fixing scandal. Two of the three other CoA members—Ramachandra Guha and Vikram Limaye—resigned within months of their appointment, leaving Diana Edulji and Rai to reform Indian cricket. Rahul Johri was the BCCI’s CEO; its Anti-Coruption Unit was under Delhi’s former Commissioner of Police, Neeraj Kumar.