BOMBAY, 12 September 2003 — It was a terrible fortnight for Indian sports. First tennis star and one of the finest doubles players in the world, Leander Paes caused concern after being hospitalized in US with lesion in the brain. Fortunately, it turned out to be benign and not malignant. The worst fears of cancer were thus laid to rest.

Hardly had the sports-lovers heaved a sigh of relief, came the shocking news of a serious car accident in which India’s outstanding young hockey player and the hero of the team’s fair show in the recent Champions’ Trophy, was involved. He suffered multiple fractures all over, more severe on his right arm and leg. Eight separate surgeries, with insertion of metal plates, were performed on him.

India’s penalty-corner specialist and a sound defender, in a brave act, had pulled three of his friends out from the mangled debris of his car before collapsing. Medical opinion is still not firm whether Jugraj will be able to play again.

Tragedy hadn’t quite ceased as last Sunday saw India’s former Test captain G. S. Ramchand succumbed to his third heart attack in a matter of days. Ramchand, a dashing all-rounder, is best remembered for leading India on its first ever Test victory over Australia. That was in 1959, when a little known off-spinner Jasu Patel had played havoc with a strong Australian batting side, capturing 14 wickets in the match.

While the younger men have survived their traumas and there is hope that both Leander and Jugraj will play, Gulabrai Sipahimalani Ramchand’s indeed is a sad case. He played Test cricket when the players, however big, got a pittance. Ramchand and others were paid a sum of 250 rupees for an entire Test match. That worked out to just 50 rupees a day, which is less than half the amount that fetches a single day ticket in the cheapest Test enclosure today.

Even when Ramchand had established himself as a player of great utility, courageous and totally committed, he was without a job for months after captaining the Indian side on a historic victory. It was his colleague, Vijay Manjrekar, who helped him to join Air India and that too because the airline was promoting a cricket team for the first time.

After retirement, it was not easy for Ramchand to maintain himself and was in a pathetic state of late, so much so that the family could not afford to keep him in the special ICU ward for long. He was shifted to the general ward. The strange irony of his fate was that by then the Cricket Board had sanctioned an ad hoc payment of 2 lakhs rupees, with promise of more. All that, however, came too late.

No amount of high tributes, so customary after a person’s death, can wipe out the agony that Ramchand went through, once his playing days were over. See how times have changed!

Today’s top cricketer is sent abroad in a jiffy for specialized treatment even for a minor finger ailment. No one is grudging the current players their enormous payment and the fabulous perks. They are garnering that much financial support for the game.

Each Indian player has been promised a payment of 50 lakhs rupees for making the World Cup final, where they lost to Australia. And what did the man who had led the country on her very first victory over Australia, ever get? As in life, so in death, nothing.

There are still many veteran players in a pecuniary state. Will it be too much for the present players and the game’s administration to think of them.