IT IS a very good thing in a way that the BCCI decided against doing a public review of the disastrous England tour. After all, it might be of good recall value for all of us to remember what happened when they last did a public review.
This was following the disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign in which the team was knocked out in the opening rounds. The then BCCI president Sharad Pawar, given to grandstandings, had a grand review involving seven former captains. Everything seemed hunky-dory, the BCCI too publicly announced the decisions of its working committee to accept all the suggestions. In the end, the following suggestions was provided by the former captains.
Note the suggestions in bold which were never implemented:
1. With a view to strengthening domestic cricket, efforts will be made to ensure that all Test / ODI Cricketers play Irani, Duleep, Challenger and some Ranji Trophy Matches.
2. Every Association will be directed to prepare fast and lively wickets for domestic tournaments.
3. The BCCI will do away with home and away rotation and allot venues for Irani Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Deodhar Trophy, Ranji Trophy semi-finals and finals and one-day all-India knockout.
4. All affiliated units should start their own state academies by April 2009. These academies would be linked to the National Cricket Academy for the purpose of uniformity in coaching.
5 The zonal representation in the senior and junior selection committees to be scrapped. BCCI will appoint selectors on a full time basis based upon the eligibility criteria which would include stature as a player, selection experience etc. They will be remunerated suitably and appointed for a two-year term. The BCCI will take steps to propose necessary amendments to the Constitution to give effect to the above decision.
6. Regular and frequent Under-19 and India A tours to Australia / England / New Zealand / South Africa / West Indies will be undertaken.
7. The Working Committee has directed the Selection Committee to send a young team to Bangladesh under an experienced captain. The selection committee, after discussions has appointed Rahul Dravid as captain for India’s tour to Bangladesh, Ireland and England.
8. BCCI will appoint a permanent manager for the Indian team for a two-year term. The Board will also appoint a permanent Media Manager for a two- year term.
9. Notice will be issued to Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh under Rule 38 of the Memorandum and the Rules and Regulations of the Board asking for an explanation for their comments made to the media.
10. Working Committee approvesd the Performance-based Payment to the players and decided to do away with the present gradation for Retainership. Apart from the payment, the following points would form a part of the contract.
•A player will endorse not more than 3 sponsors / products
•No Sponsor can contract more than 2 players.
•The players will not be allowed to do any sponsor-related events 15 days before the tour and also during the tour.
•Before every tour, all the contracted players have to undergo a fitness test and only those who fulfill the benchmarks will be considered for selection.
• No player shall have exclusive contracts with electronic or print media. Only the captain can write a column or talk to the media but not exclusively.
•The players shall take prior approval of the Board before signing any endorsement contract and will submit a copy of the agreement to the Board. All the players shall submit a copy of the existing contracts with sponsors to the Board.
•All the players will have to play a stipulated number of domestic matches when not playing for India.
•In the event of injury to the player, the Board will compensate him the match fees that he would have earned for a maximum period of six months.
11. Working committee to form a cricket advisory committee consisting of the following ex-captains: Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi, Chandu Borde, Ravi Shastri, Krish Srikkanth and S Venkataraghavan under the chairmanship of president [Sharad Pawar] and will include all the office bearers.
12. Working committee to appoint Ravi Shastri as cricket manager for India’s tour to Bangladesh. Venkatesh Prasad will be the bowling coach and Robin Singh, the fielding coach for the tour.
It is a hardly a surprise then that the issues raised at that meeting four-and-a-half years ago are still relevant to Indian cricket now.
It seems that in Indian cricket, the more things change the more they remain the same.
If the BCCI had taken corrective steps in 2007, then things would have never come to such a pass in England in 2011. Of course the BCCI would like to tell us that the team won Test series abroad in England (2007), New Zealand and West Indies after that. And they would also gently remind us that the Indian team won the World Cup in 2011.
But what they will forget is that these are mere milestones, in what is really a process to ensure that Indian cricket does not just have a strong present, but a stronger future.
A system was never the essence of how Indian cricket was run, it was more about individuals and that is why the sport is at a crossroads in the country.
Unfortunately the powers that be will never read the writing on the wall.
It is this lackadaisical approach which has resulted in no planning and has ensured that greenhorns will take up the cudgels for much of the remainder of the season thanks to a variety of injuries.
The funniest of the recommendations above was the one on payments linked to performance and the restriction on the number of endorsements to be done by players.
Both these never got implemented despite repeated public posturing by the BCCI in 2007. It was impractical and was never going to be implemented. BCCI beat a hasty retreat and were never held accountable for these inactions.
Maybe an RTI would help in finding out what really happened in 2007, which is where the roots of what led to the present situation lie.
This is not the only document that was consigned to the dustbin.
In the wake of the match-fixing scandal, the BCCI under AC Mutiah presented a detailed blueprint to the then Sports Minister SS Dhindsa in 2000 (link here: http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2000/aug/01vision.htm) titled Vision Document.
Note that even in 2000 a museum was a top priority for the BCCI, as it is even now, 11 years later.
If they cannot progress in 11 years on a museum, maybe it is asking too much to expect them to progress on other cricketing matters?
