JAWAHARLAL Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, was a great fan of the Planning Commission. He liked the idea of five year plans, targets and all that during his 16-year tenure at the top.
But some 47 years since his death, Indian sport as a whole and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in general gives short shrift to what he kickstarted all those years ago.
It is all adhoc with no method to the madness. The recent losses to England in the first two Tests just proved that. Nothing changes in Indian cricket.
As the saying goes – the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Indian cricketers landed in England a week before the first Test and BCCI mandarins told them, “Okay, go play”. It is all very well to blame the IPL for the cramped schedule. The IPL is BCCI’s baby and so are the players, so who are to blame for the lack of planning?
The BCCI has no plan, full stop. Things happen and the board only looks to multiply the financial gains.
It need not have been this way. India could have learnt a thing or two from what England and Australia have done. Off the field we look to dominate the cricketing landscape like the two once did, but can’t we borrow a thing or two from what they have done on the field?
England have had two serious reviews of the structure of the game in the country. First in 1999 and then in 2007-08 when it lost 0-5 in the Ashes to Australia. Australia too, have had two serious reviews of the game. The first time in the 1980s and they are again in the process now after yet another Ashes loss.
England’s first overhaul happened in 1999 just when Duncan Fletcher took over as their coach. Fletcher’s plan was clear. Get all the players on central contracts and then take total control of the players. Players till then, used to play county cricket and then come as tired bodies to the England set-up. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Fletcher would have none of it and changed the set-up. Players were centrally contracted by the ECB and then remained under the responsibility of the cricket operations department. A full fledged department with a full time director in charge of cricket in the region. The team also got a full-time manager who was responsible for tracking the players, keeping a tab on injuries, dealing with administrative issues and the general interface between the board and the players.
The counties would get players as and when the team management worked out how it would manage a particular player. A system was put in place and the performances of England improved.
The player injury is monitored by the team medical staff, who reports to the cricket operations department, team manager and the coaching staff. There is constant monitoring that way.
Can we ever expect India to have a system where the players report to a team manager, and not call up senior officials in BCCI to get things done?
Never. Till the time the system does not become more important than individuals.
In the second review, England managed to change the structure further. With a full-time managing director (Hugh Morris) looking after the England cricket team and the affairs around it.
Andy Flower is also the Team Director as well as a selector and not the coach. He is responsible, along with Morris, for keeping a track of talent across the country. There is interaction with the High Performance Centre as well.
How much interaction did Gary Kirsten have with the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore? Nothing whatsoever.
Did Kirsten interact either with Sandeep Patil (present Director, Operations of NCA) or his predecessor Dave Whatmore? No, he did not.
Things just work by rote in India. If India wins an event, a major Test series or match, we all rejoice. But do we realise that these victories happen because of the quality of the players we have had in all three formats.
The World Cup win was not because of the system, but because of the players. We still had a flawed system which allowed an unfit player to travel right through without playing a single game.
The more we change in our everyday life, the more we remain the same in Indian cricket.
Introducing a new column from an Industry Veteran who chooses to remain anonymous for reasons that it would compromise his corporate position if he were to reveal his identity. The only remit that SportzPower has given The Insider is this – that the commentary should have no compromise on fact and that the effort should be directed towards the betterment of sport and the institutions that represent sport.
