THE disclosure that top members of the national team carried injuries to the Twenty20 World Cup should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the approach of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) towards controversial issues.
So it was only to be expected that the board mandarins pretended that they were blissfully unaware of this issue — until the physiotherapist’s report submitted before the start of the World Cup fell in the lap of the media. But the world has now come to know that the BCCI officials knew full well about the injuries to the key players – Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Rudra Pratap Singh. And, living up to the board history, they kept quiet, apparently because they did not want to antagonise anyone.
The question that arises is: What then is the purpose of employing a physiotherapist if his reports/recommendations are not heeded to and acted upon? Well, my dear readers, it has always been like that with the BCCI. Have you ever heard that a player was dropped on the recommendation of a physiotherapist for an important tournament like a World Cup? It has probably never happened.
They may be ‘powerful’ officials, carrying lots of clout, but when it comes to taking lead in a potentially controversial issue, they refuse to come forward. Let me also tell you that behind closed doors they are a completely different lot. They never let go any opportunity to criticise top players and even recommend quantums of punishment for them. To get a proof of what I am saying, you will have to access minutes of various BCCI meetings. I have read some of them and then the reality dawned on me. You will then realise that they have two faces – one for the public/media and the other when they are in the company of their colleagues in an air-conditioned room, away from the media and public glare.
So, one possible reason why the BCCI kept the physiotherapist’s report under wraps before the Twenty20 World Cup could be that no one wanted to be identified letting the cat out of the bag. For, that would have given ammunition to their enemies within the board and criticism in the media and among the masses.
The only other possible reason could be that they feared if these injured players – all automatic starters in the playing XI — are withdrawn the team would be smashed to pulp (The ghost of 2007 ODI World Cup is still alive in the minds of everyone). Not just that, they could have also anticipated the public wrath coming for allowing the injured players play in the intense, money-spinning 37-day Indian Premier League in South Africa. The injuries were picked up during the IPL.
Had these injuries been disclosed before the Twenty20 World Cup and players withdrawn, the public outrage would have been huge. It would surely have overshadowed India’s effort to defend the title they had won in 2007. So, the BCCI mandarins, in their collective wisdom, decided to lie low while keeping their fingers crossed. They must have thought that if India wins the title, the issue would die a natural death; and even if the media discovers these injuries after the tournament, the hullabaloo would not be as much.
Like on most occasions, our seasoned board officials were right. They knew well that even if the media lays its hands on physiotherapist Nitin Patel’s report after the World Cup, the time before the start of the one-day series in the West Indies would be so short that the focus would soon shift elsewhere and both media and public would forget the raging issue.
And this is exactly what seems to be happening. The first of the four one-dayers is as early as next Friday and with the Indian media expected to be thinner in attendance in the Caribbean than at the World Cup, the issue would soon be laid to rest in the files or CDs.
Moreover, our board officials are well aware that public memory is short and a series win in the West Indies would soon make the same furious fans adore the same players. And the board officials can rest in peace, as usual, their chairs safe.
Meanwhile, I can see desperate fans pulling their hair in desperation, wondering why the BCCI does not fall under the RTI scanner. The more optimistic are still hoping that one day, it will come under the RTI hammer and then the board officials would have to (hopefully) change their attitude towards the gullible fans and alter their manner of working, because then they would know that the RTI sword is hanging over their heads — always. If the BCCI does one day comes under RTI’s scope, you can expect things to change for the better.
