Cricket of future is now in India
Year 2005 has scripted a unique chapter in the Board of Control for Cricket in India annals for reasons off-the-field, rather than cricket itself.
Though BCCI should be about cricket, for better part of the year cricket was played in the boardrooms and amid the myriad stone edifices naming courts around the country.
However, the year ended on a high with a change of guards and hopes of reviving the shambolic administration of the country’s richest sports body.
The year will also be remembered for divesting the most successful Indian captain Sourav Ganguly off his crown first and then dropping him from the shorter version of the game and finally adding insult to injury by showing him out of the Test team in Ahmedabad.
And then came the revival of Sourav mania when he was given a ticket to Pakistan in the Test squad.
Battlelines were drawn, the bugles kept sounding and a simmering tension was palpable as the BCCI juggernaut rolled towards the September elections that would call to end the first term of Ranbir Singh Mahendra, who allegedly ran a puppet administration with Jagmohan Dalmiya calling the shots from behind.
After hitting a cul de sac of legal tangles during the September 22 and 23 BCCI AGM, the meet ended on a consensus crest with Mahendra announcing that the 76th AGM has been adjourned and a fresh meeting will be held before Nov.30.
BCCI touches a new height
The great Indian circus called BCCI had touched a new high. On a day of long legal knives and extraordinary claims by the rival groups led by Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar, two former Chief Justices of India were appointed by Calcutta High Court as additional observers, to the one already appointed before, to oversee the AGM and elections of the Board.
A day later and after several adjournments and closeted meetings Supreme Court justices K N Singh and M.N. Poonchi left the venue for their respective homes, leaving the polls to be overseen by former supreme court judge S C Sen, appointed primarily by the court on Sept.21, thanks to a fresh judgement.
Pawar was miffed with the way things went and not willing to accept the word consensus, said: “We were forced to come to an understanding on this issue as there was no alternative.'’
Two months and six days hence on Nov.29, he showed why he was miffed then. Pawar took over with a landslide victory of 18-13 and his entire lobby sailed through most convincingly. There was a change in guard.
The five-man-army of Pawar - Niranjan Shah, N. Srinivasan, I.S. Bindra and Lalit Modi - seem to have all the ammunition to fire on all cylinders.
This certainly does not discount the others like Shashank Manohar and Raj Singh Dungarpur who are vital supports in this Pawar-play.
Winds of change
The winds of change are blowing in the corridors of Indian cricket. Greg Chappell, who took over as the Indian coach a few months back, is now on a firm saddle.
Professionalism is the new buzzword as the new regime put into place a delivery system that is more efficient and transparent than the one of the previous rule.
The first few moves have been excellent and in the right direction. A television deal completed in one evening, sponsors flying in everyday making Indian cricket team one of the richest teams in the world and a contract for players that promises to be sleek and robust. And all without an ilk of a controversy.
There is also the promise of a CEO and a media manager for BCCI. And the way things are being handled it only seems to be a matter of time.
Big uproar
The biggest uproar Greg Chappell era had created till now is the spat between him and Sourav Ganguly.
A mail that was flushed out on Sept. 23 coinciding with the jinxed AGM bore the ominous signs that both the player and his mentor were on their way out.
Probably better documented than man landing on moon, it will go down into the cricket history of India as one of the ugliest eye-sores.
“Yes, I was asked to step down,'’ Ganguly said in Zimbabwe. “Ganguly is mentally and physically unfit to lead the squad,'’ Chappell wrote in the mail.
“He wants to play cricket for India. I want to be a good coach. And I want to be the coach of a good Indian team. But for that to happen you need to have a group that blends well,'’ Chappell said on the Ganguly question.
Ganguly after being ignored for the entire Sri Lanka series that India won under the stewardship of Rahul Dravid with a tennis match like score of 6-1 was taken for two Tests. Chennai was washed out and after a decent performance in Kotla he was ignored again.
A wave of rage swept the nation and much is being speculated about his future. The result came when on Christmas eve, “Maharaj”, as he is nicknamed, made a grand re-entry into the Test squad that was selected for Pakistan. He will leave for Pakistan in 10-days’ time along with the team.
But will he feature in the playing eleven? Will he be able to prove himself? How will the dressing room be in his presence? These are questions that only time will answer.
But for Chappell, he is on the job. He has laid stress on the fact the team is as important as the result.
And while John Wright dared not to upset the applecart inspite of some indifferent captaincy by Ganguly, Chappell a hard-nosed sunbaked Aussie preferred to call spade a spade.
His philosophy of having a strong reserve bench, absolute commitment, scouting out new talents and forming a team malleable and ductile at the same time laid stress on the means to the end as also the end itself.
And things are already up and looking. India had an ordinary cricketing year, that is ending on a high.
They drew the home Test series against Pakistan and then lost the one-dayers 4-2. The Zimbabwe Test series was won, but who haven’t won against the strife-riddden Zimbabweans off late.
The trip to Sri Lanka was forgettable as was the tri-Nation one-day series featuring New Zealand. Then came the drop and Dravid rose in rank and stature as captain of Team India.
Tendulkar sets record
Milestone-man Sachin Tendulkar set the records of highest number of Test centuries scoring his 35th ton against Sri Lanka in New Delhi.
He also completed his 356th one-day appearance against the islanders in Kolkata becoming the most capped player in the shorter version of the game.
Ganguly completed 10,000 runs in one-day cricket to reach a select club, while M.S. Dhoni, the find of the year, blasted his way to the record books with an unbeaten 183, the highest score by a wicketkeeper in one-day history, eclipsing Adam Gilchrist’s 172.
The future is now. The future is here. It’s time the Indian think tank gave up the feudal mentality themselves and took up the Chappell ways of things and nepotism philosophy of work for the deserving.
