BOMBAY, 15 August 2003 — After several hectic years of international engagements, at home and abroad, the Indian cricketers are having a long lay off from the game. While a few have taken up County assignments in England, almost all of them have treated themselves to some well-earned holidays abroad. Sachin Tendulkar even went to Germany to watch his Grand Prix track hero in action, only to see Schumi, lose his third Formula One race in a row.

One is not sure whether the players have become rusty for lack of competitive cricket. Most of them claim that they have been training indoors on account of the rains. All this will be out when, after a six-month break, about 40 selected players will attend a two-week training camp at Bangalore. This will be in preparation for the visit of New Zealand in October, followed by Australia.

Also gearing up for the busy season ahead are various units of the cricket administration in the country. While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has done a lot of table work for the forthcoming tours and the Indian team’s visit to Australia in December, the Cricket Club of India (CCI), whose President Raj Singh Dungarpur is no more in the good books of the BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, is planning a couple of important cricket functions on its own.

First the CCI will be hosting the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket committee meeting in the middle of September. Raj Singh Dungarpur is all excited about this meeting, as it will be after many years that the once famous Test ground and its well-appointed clubhouse, will be the venue of an ICC meeting. He is even more excited about the second event that he is hosting and, that is honoring all the Indian cricketers who had scored a century or taken five or more wickets in a Test match at Lord’s. The kin of those who are no more alive will be presented the mementos on behalf of these cricketers.

Raj Singh said that he had contacted the grandson of Mohammed Nissar, who migrated to Pakistan after partition, and he will make all efforts to have him come down to Bombay for the honor. Nissar made one of the most lethal pace twosome in Test history with Amar Singh. Both of them had taken five wickets at Lord’s, Nissar in 1936 and Amar Singh in 1946.

These events will also have happy tidings for those who are trying their very best to resume cricketing ties between India and Pakistan. The important factor in this regard is the presence of the new ICC Chief Ehsan Mani, a Pakistani, who will be coming to Bombay to specially chair the ICC meeting.

His presence in India will pave the way for important meetings with several highly-placed persons in the government as well. When Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was in London, the ICC Chief Ehsan Mani had taken Raj Singh to meet him and they discussed the possibility of renewing cricketing ties between the two countries. It will now be Raj Singh’s turn to arrange for Mani’s meeting with the political bigwigs in India, in order to make them offer their consent to resuming of sporting ties.

It looks so near and yet, for all practical purposes, so far in terms of achieving a breakthrough in renewing these and other relations between India and Pakistan. The emphasis is so much on cricket because it is the one game that gets the entire nations so totally involved.

The way things have moved so far, on the social, economic and, not to mention, humanitarian grounds in the last few months, the ice has indeed begun to melt and the thawing process is being hastened each day with several visits of people from both sides. The warmth on both sides is there for all to see. Nothing symbolizes this better than the manner in which little Noor stole the hearts of the Indians, literally so.

Many on both sides feel that even if the major issues cannot be resolved immediately, people-to-people contact should continue. There is no better forum in this regard than sports. Even this should be on real terms, with exchange in each other’s country, and not at neutral venues.