Patriots game to knock the BCCI's block off for dishonouring country?

Dec 30th, 2007

Anil Kumble When India took the big hit it did in the first test at Melbourne, inevitably one of the reasons trotted out was the "need more time to acclimatise" thingy that we all knew would come up sooner or later. It is so convenient; lose and shout "we need more time", win and say "Rahul played great, Sachin is a genius etc".

Many years back I read an article on Rediff by Prem Panicker about a make-believe press conference in which Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, two of India's very best at that time, come in and make the announcement of their collective decisions to resign from the Indian cricket team and retire from the game in response to their frustrations at the BCCI's way of functioning. I tried but failed to get the link to the article from the internet and while I cannot remember the exact issue the article was penned on, with Panicker's style and dash, it made for good reading, and the basic 'masala' of the article was based on two big names dealing the worst blow they could to the BCCI as a mark of protest for destroying Indian cricket as they do every day of the month, and every month of the year. I remembered that article when I read about Kumble's comment on the need for more time to acclimatize.

Yes, Mr. Kumble, you are definitely right! Any decent cricket board with administrators having even half a brain would not let their team get into the first test of the toughest tour possible with one practice game against one of the weakest state teams on a most un-Australian pitch. The fact that rain took away even whatever crumbs the BCCI had thrown towards the team is a different matter and I guess I cannot blame the BCCI for that (unless some knowledgeable among the readers tell me that this rain was seasonal, i.e. - expected?). But what matters to me more is - so what is anyone going to do about it?

Is it the first time this kind of thing has happened? Is this going to be the last? Don't we know right now that the BCCI will do this kind of thing time and again, and there is nothing we can do about it?

Basically, one can tackle this in two ways; one is to grab the gods of Indian cricket - the Gangulys, the Tendulkars, the Dravids, the Kumbles, the Yuverajs - by the scruffs of their necks and shake them hard so their teeth rattle? "You wuss, you wimps, you gods of small things, you worthless home-track-bullies, shame on you", we can scream and hope someone actually feels the shame! However, we know that is not going to happen; neither their shaking part nor their feeling shame! The second way is for someone to give a shock to the BCCI, the kind of shock they are unused to till date - the shock of having their paid employees - the stars, the gods, the keys to their overflowing bank accounts - asking them some blunt questions about why they can't do a better job of it.

Dravid, SRT, Kumble, Ganguly, and Laxman have been in the team for donkey's years now. Surely they must have earned enough for ten of their generations, except Laxman who might have earned only for about three. Surely they can take the risk of going up to the BCCI and asking - "excuse me, but can we do a bit better please"?

Let's face it; Sriram Ranganathan writing on the AOL blog site is not going to make a difference; neither is Harsha Bhogle writing on ESPN-Star and Prem Panicker writing on Rediff. However, a press conference of the type described by Panicker all those years back would surely do wonders. In India it is the public that runs cricket by buying the colas, the bikes and the dandruff-free shampoos, but the public gets no respect from the BCCI (nor from the players but that is another story) so only the players, the money earners, can do something about it.

We all hear about how the players play for the country and every ton and every five-wicket haul only goes towards bringing honor to the country. In fact, from all accounts, we have the worlds most patriotic in the SRTs and the Dravids and Gangulys. Surely, a couple of them ought to take an interest in something that brings dishonor to the country they sweat buckets to bring honor to every day of the year?

Every time the BCCI approves a schedule that keeps a 3 day match against Victoria as the only practice match before the tests start, it merely confirms that the Indian team will get its pants thrashed off in the coming matches. The players go into those matches knowing that they are going to be humiliated and with them the country which they all dedicate their runs and wickets to. The cash probably takes away some of the pain, but that is why I appeal more to the SRTs and the Gangulys and the Dravids and Kumbles than I do to the Jaffers and RP Singhs. There would be enough cash with the afore-mentioned to face any eventuality, even if the BCCI dared (which I think it never would) to sack them for disloyalty or mutiny or revolt or whatever. Definitely, the public of this cricket-crazy country would back the players if such a clash should ever occur, and it would be a matter of time before the BCCI buckled.

Now, the thing is - all those who put the flag on the helmets and claim to carry the country's honor on their sleeve; do any of them actually have the guts or care enough to do anything except grumble in private? We all know the answer to that one, don't we?

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Reader Comments

1. I consider that the attitude of the Indians is disgraceful and that Australia should refuse to tour India next. Wake up Singh and stop the racist behaviour. Coming from an Indian this is all a little too much to bear.