There’s been a flurry of sporting activities in the last week. Apart from cricket there’s the French Open tennis, the Formula One Grand Prix motor racing, the final of Champions League football and the Azlan Shah hockey tournament in Malaysia.
To those not obsessed with who the coach of the Indian cricket team is and the words attributed to him, it has been a veritable feast of sporting action and there has been plenty of it alright.
Michael Schumacher who looked untouchable last year when he won the driver’s championship even before the season was halfway done is finding it difficult to finish this year and though his team have given him a new car the aura of invincibility is simply not there. Hopefully for the sport the ambition is still there for make no mistake there is a charisma that Schumacher has that others in F-1 do not have and this season’s setbacks will make him hungry to prove to the world that a champion is always a champion.
On the cricketing front the little champion has had surgery on his troublesome elbow and it will keep him out of the game for about four months but will allow him to return to the game fully recovered.
India do not have a testing series till November when Sri Lanka come over for a tour, so that will give him enough time for rehabilitation and getting back to peak fitness and more importantly help him to play without pain in the future.
Though he can’t play in the tsunami relief game he has been replaced by another Indian VVS Laxman. Surprising are the ways of the organizers for though Tendulkar is not the captain of his national team he was made the captain inspite of having Stephen Fleming in the side. Now Fleming, who captains New Zealand, has been appointed skipper in place of the injured Tendulkar and Laxman who does not find a place in the India’s one-day side find a place in the MCC XI.
Saurav Ganguly has signed up for Glamorgan and will play for them till his ban ends. He is not the most popular of players in England thanks to a created image by an essentially working class people of him being Lord Snooty. Don’t be surprised if during his stint with Glamorgan there will be more written about other aspects of his cricket and not about whether he scores runs or takes wickets for his county. He has been out of action for sometime now and though county cricket is not the competition it was in the late 60s and 70s it will give him some match practice and help him get back in the groove again. That county cricket is nothing better than club cricket can be seen by the number of bowlers who get thousands of wickets without taking any at the international level and score century after century at county level but come a cropper at the Test level.
Still we with our complex will no doubt hail those Indians who do well there even if they fail at the international level. What’s the use scoring runs in county cricket if you can’t get runs against Bangladesh and that too on a shirt front wicket ? It’s no surprise then when the player fails against Pakistan and it will be a surprise if he gets picked again simply on scoring some cheap runs in county cricket.
Speaking of Bangladesh, they were thrashed by England before lunch on the third day prompting calls to revoke their Test status. While there is no provision to take away Test status perhaps the ICC could look at restricting Test for Bangladesh as they did for Zimbabwe when the latter was having its crisis with the rebellion by the ‘white’ players asking some ‘black’ selectors to resign. There are also those who point a finger at India and especially Dalmiya at hurrying through Test status for Bangladesh for political reasons.
Once again it is a set image by the British media for in reality though the ICC voted to give Test status to Bangladesh and did so unanimously it was only after it was recommended by a specially appointed committee of former cricketers. Under the Chairmanship of Sir Clyde Walcott the ICC Cricket Committee appointed a sub-committee of Bob Simpson, Andy PyCroft of Zimbabwe and Nasim-Ul Ghani of Pakistan to visit Bangladesh, see the cricketing infrastructure there and then report if Bangladesh were ready for Test and international cricket. Bobby Simpson had to decline as he accepted a coaching job with India at the time and Graham Dowling, former New Zealand captain, took his place.
It was only after they reported favorably that the main ICC Executive Board decided to give them Test status. So if Mr. Dowling & Co. had reported that Bangladesh were not ready for Test cricket then they would not have got it whether Dalmiya was president of ICC or not. Remember, at that time Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and even West Indies were not inclined toward Dalmiya and yet it was a unanimous decision to give Bangladesh Test status. So please don’t point fingers at only one person.
