The Hindu : Sport : Professionalism is the need of the hour

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Tuesday, Sep 26, 2006
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Professionalism is the need of the hour

Hopefully, the Team Pawar will have time to discuss the future of Indian cricket, writes Makarand Waingankar

RIGHT CREDENTIALS: Dilip Vengsarkar has the credentials to head the national selection panel. — FILE PHOTO: V. V. KRISHNAN

The former President of the BCCI, Fathesinhrao Gaekwad walked out of the BCCI AGM in September 1982 at Bangalore saying he spent time with the representatives of the affiliated units expecting them to discuss future of Indian cricket but apart from the word cricket he heard everything.

That was the meeting when S. K. Wankhede, who was in the hospital, was unceremoniously replaced by another politician N.K.P. Salve as the President of the BCCI.

On Tuesday when the AGM of the BCCI begins at Mumbai, it is unlikely to witness such a scene. Politicians value political process and know best how to use it to their advantage. It would be naïve to think Sharad Pawar would be complacent to squander that advantage. At the moment, he has blocked all the entry points on the President route.

Mental game

Hopefully, Team Pawar will have time to discuss the future of Indian cricket. If some officials are getting excited at adding more digits to a figure that will cross millions into billions, the lot which is making it happen — the renowned Indian players — is definitely not happy as they are getting mentally exhausted. After all, cricket is a mental game.

To run the game professionally, the scheduling of the game is to be done by those who have had the experience of playing at the highest level.

Effective proof

This assessment has no bearing on India's performance in Kuala Lumpur. It does seem Team Pawar and Team Chappell have chalked out different paths to achieve the goal. The goal of Team Pawar initially was to have corporate governance for efficient management and transparency.

The hullabaloo raised by the very concept has been an effective proof of its undesirability both by those in power and those aspiring to be in power.

The move to get the captains and the coaches of the Ranji Trophy teams to attend the conclave at the end of the season for them to express opinions and get some important decisions implemented was welcomed by the cricketers. But with quite nebulous reasoning, the conclave to be held at Delhi in April which Pawar was to attend was not held.

Since there was no conclave, the assessments of umpires, which most captains and Match Referees expected to be announced, could not be done. They must be wondering whether their assessments of umpires was at all necessary when ranking based on captains' and Match Referees' reports was not considered while recommending the names of umpires to the ICC.

The BCCI is now contemplating remodelling the Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW) by asking the Match Referees to double up as Talent Resource Development Officers (TRDO). Will the Match Referees, who are likely to be former umpires, be competent enough to assess the technique and talent of players?

When the TRDW project was submitted by me to the BCCI in January 2002, the preamble of the project was "To assess the technique and talent of a performer by each TRDO separately so as to make the selection of a player talent-technique oriented rather than scoresheet-oriented. Thus the TRDOs will complement the efforts of the junior national selectors. To remove the bias, the TRDOs may be chosen by the NCA committee (Gavaskar, Vengsarkar and Brijesh Patel) so that associations do not interfere with the process."

Despite the fact that most of the players in the Indian team have been spotted by the TRDOs, the BCCI seems keen to accommodate recommendations of associations to consolidate the power base. But by doing so, the Team Pawar may have impaired the future of Indian cricket.

The review of the TRDW ought to have been done by the Cricket Development Committee of Kapil Dev or the National Cricket Academy headed by Sunil Gavaskar.

The fact that such decisions are not even referred to either Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar shows complete disregard to the positions these two great cricketers hold in Indian cricket.

For once, no one will grudge Dilip Vengsarkar being entrusted with the responsibility to head the national selection committee. This ought to have happened earlier.

To youngsters, this move will be a great hope for Vengsarkar, as the Chairman of the TRDW, blooded teenagers Parthiv Patel and Irfan Pathan in the West Zone for the Duleep Trophy.

Again, all that talk of making the selectors professional has remained on paper. A three-member committee was a dream to some, but to people who love clinging on to power, it would have been an obstacle.

No matter what is said about the non-interference of the BCCI officials in selectorial decisions, the bizarre methodology employed by some selection committees possibly would have made Team Pawar change the pattern. But all that has been done is to put the office-bearers in a comfort zone by extending their term.

The financial balance sheet of the BCCI will make sportspersons and officials of other sports in the country envious, but the real balance sheet that should shake Indian sports is the consistent performance of the Indian cricket team.

Dishing out lame excuses or being stubborn in defending erroneous decisions is not the right approach when the World Cup is just around the corner.

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