BOMBAY, 16 May 2003 — As far as India is concerned, there is hardly any cricketing action on at the moment. Even the domestic season has been put to sleep with the National Championship for the Ranji Trophy having been completed last week.
There is, however, action of a different sort with some of the biggest names of the game involved. There is, in fact, a virtual showdown between two groups of cricketers, holding views as opposite as to make them opponents, as if in a cricket match.
What is being called into question is the formation of a new body of players, named the Indian Cricket Players’ Association (ICPA). One may recall that such a body was formed when the current players were faced with a dilemma over the signing of the playing contract with the International Cricket Council just before the World Cup in South Africa.
The president of the Board of Control for Cricket India, Jagmohan Dalmiya had the interest of the players uppermost in his mind while dealing with the contract issue. He was prepared to take on the mighty ICC over the encroachment of the Indian cricketers‚ property rights on account of the ambush marketing clause in the contract.
But there was still suspicion all round that the leading players with multiple and lucrative endorsement contracts may stand to lose a big chunk of their revenue, if their major endorsement appearances were blacked out on television. Taking a leaf out of the notebook of the Australian players and their association and encouraged no less by the firm stand taken by Ravi Shastri on the issue, the cricketers decided to form their own body. While Shastri, Arun Lal and Anil Kumble did all the spadework, the blessings of someone as highly respected as Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was invited to head the body. While the BCCI did not oppose the formation of such a body, Indian Cricket Players’ Association, they did not whole-heartedly support it either. There is no denying the fact, however, that Dalmiya did the best that he could to handle the act of confrontation with the ICC. When this body was formed, everyone, small and big, supported it. Every first-class cricketer in India was invited to be a member. The aims and objective of the ICPA was to benefit all.
The World Cup has come and gone and one might have thought that the ICPA will get down to business as the ICC contract controversy is still far from over. While the current cricketers are holding steadfast to their rights of earning freely on endorsements, those who have shifted their stand on the idea of the very formation of the body include three of India’s former players, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Mohinder Amarnath.
Joining these star players is Ashok Malhotra, who has today come into prominence because of his appointment as a stand-in coach of the Indian team in the absence of John Wright. Although the former New Zealand captain is back in his job, Malhotra, with no great Test record in his playing days, has been retained as an assistant coach.
Gavaskar was the first to raise the propriety of having the new body. “Why, what happened to the earlier one?” he asked. The reference was to the Association of Indian Cricketers (AIC) formed way back in 1989. Similar questions were raised by Kapil Dev, Amarnath and Malhotra. It might be mentioned here that all these four former players are involved with the BCCI’s National Cricket Academy.
The earlier body, formed in 1989, was the consequence of victimization of six leading players by the BCCI for playing a couple of unofficial exhibition matches in USA and Canada, on their way back from a tour of the West Indies. The players‚ association, with Kapil as president, had moved the Supreme Court on a matter of fundamental rights and had won the case for the players. The body hardly functioned thereafter and was as good as defunct.
The opposition to the present body by the former players is rather surprising, as all of them had spoken in favor of the players‚ rights when the clash with the ICC was developing. Ashok Malhotra, who was with the players all along suddenly changed his tune the moment he was appointed as a coach by the BCCI.
Malhotra has in particular has attacked the three most prominent protagonists of the ICPA, president Pataudi, vice-president Arun Lal and convenor Ravi Shastri. He not only questioned their credentials, on account of their being ex-players, but also expressed doubts whether the three of them had the time to serve the association. Malhotra did not spare even the present captain Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, implying that these two were only serving their own interests.
One can see a subtle attempt by the BCCI to break the ICPA which is only a few months old. It does not, however, want to be seen doing anything in that direction. But there is no doubt that the top former players are being used to bring about the dissolution of the new body.
Will the BCCI ever succeed in putting the present stars in their places or will the cricketers stand up to all opposition with a kind of unity of purpose that has rarely been seen amongst the Indian cricketers? Time alone will tell. But crucial time it is for both the players and the BCCI as the ICC is getting tougher on the contract issue.
