BOMBAY, 6 July — The day India plays the final of the one-day tournament against the West Indies will be the second anniversary of the passing away of my cricketing hero M. L. Jaisimha. ‘Jai’ was my teammate on my first tour to West Indies which was like a dream come true for me for how many get the opportunity to play with their childhood hero and I got to interact a lot with him on that tour, where his previous experience came in handy not just for a newcomer like me but also to the captain Ajit Wadekar. In the West Indies they live life as if there is no tomorrow and ‘Jai’ had that same spirit and zeal for life. It would be fitting if India who suffered quite a bit at the hands of the West Indies for most of the matches till that 1971 tour are able to beat them on ‘Jai’s death anniversary for all the times India were beaten in Jai’s early career. ‘Jai’ has not got the recognition he deserved for his services to Indian cricket for more than what he did on the field it was a generation like me and the rest he encouraged and helped that needs to be recognized. It is good to know that a young man Joseph Anthony is writing his biography and I urge all cricket lovers to cooperate with him to make this book tell the world how the incomparable ‘Jai’ was.
The win will also help to overcome to some extent the disappointment of not being able to win a Test series outside the subcontinent after a long time. The next tour of Sri Lanka is going to be pretty tough both in one-day as well as Test matches there. The conditions will be familiar but Sri Lanka has made such rapid strides in recent times in both formats of the game that only a fool will take them easily. Whatever happens on that tour the interest will be focused on India’s tour after Sri Lanka to South Africa for that will give India a chance to win outside the subcontinent. Of course, South Africa is a formidable side particularly in their home conditions and matters have not been helped by the lack of coordination between the board and the players. India is scheduled to play three Tests at non major Test centers with there being no Test at Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, all centers which have a big support base for India. Instead the Tests will be at places where there is hardly any Indian origin population and where the conditions will be new to India. Whenever Australia, South Africa or England are to tour India they send an advance party almost a year before the tour to not only check out the grounds but the hotels and other facilities that are available there. Then they negotiate with the Indian Board for the Test venues they feel will suit their team. Of course the Indian board’s compulsions of awarding Tests and One-Day Internationals are totally different and entirely unpredictable but the fact that these teams are better informed as to what to expect on arrival means they are in that much better frame of mind to play than being caught completely unawares as India will be in South Africa.
The Indian Cricket Board by blindly accepting the venues given to them by the South African Cricket Board without consulting the Indian team’s think tank has made it that much more difficult for the team to win there. Hopefully the board will not have accepted the playing conditions such as bowling a minimum of 105 overs in the side fixtures as they did on the tour to Zimbabwe. Something like this which deals with the technical side of the game should come to the technical committee of the board so that their opinion is taken but it did not for the Zimbabwe tour and so hopefully the playing conditions for South Africa are brought to the technical committee so that they can study them and decide on which to accept and which to reject. What is the point in having a technical committee if they are going to be kept in the dark and the players suffer as a result.
There simply has to be more coordination between the board and the players so as to get optimum results of the game. The more they talk the lesser the misunderstanding and better understanding of each other’s problems will ensure and will lead to more consistent performances and these in turn will ensure that those who are out to damage Indian cricket will not find it easy to do so. Sure there will be lots of disgruntled folks only too happy to play into the hands of those wanting to damage the game but greater communication between the board and the players will ensure that these can be tackled successfully.
There may not be enough time to do anything about the venues and fixtures in South Africa though the playing conditions can still be looked at but there is plenty of time to look at the venues, practice facilities, the travel between the places for the tour to West Indies in March and to England in June next year. The Australians have flatly refused to play some county fixtures between Tests because they didn’t want to play teams, which rest their top players and so offer little competitive interest.
They also do not want to simply get on the team bus after a three-day county game and drive hundreds of miles to another county to play yet another meaningless game. They would much rather preserve their mental and physical energies than indulge in the travel schedule that wears out so many county cricketers and makes them average performers in the second half of the English summer.
The other thing the Indian board should guard against is to accept invitations and commit the services of top Indian players to play in so-called charity matches overseas.
While it is good to know that the Board is considering allowing three or four senior players to skip the three non-ICC calendar matches in Australia in September it would make a mockery of the decision to have these same players fly out to UK for one day for a game organized by former Prime Minister John Major. It was OK to do so last year but by having the same match every year it is now turning out like a masala match. And pray tell me how many current English players would turn up if invited for a charity match by a former India prime minister?
So BCCI please do not commit before communicating with the players. It is the best you can do for the good of Indian cricket. (Professional Management Group)
