Captain’s knock

The most distressing aspect of the goings-on in Zimbabwe is not the fact that Sourav Ganguly aired dirty linen in public, or the assumption that Greg Chappell had pushed him into doing so. Of greater concern than either of these developments — or of the equally condemnable public outburst by V.V.S. Laxman the previous day — is the deafening silence of their common paymaster, the BCCI.

A day after the event, there has been no statement to assure cricket fans that the matter is under control, that the dressing room is united, that Laxman has been pulled up and coach and captain reined in. Had Laxman been disciplined, Ganguly — a smirk on his face and a facile century under his belt — might have thought twice before outing his coach. Now, faced with two strong characters, the Board must do what it hates doing most of all: act decisively. It has seriously miscalculated the strength of Greg Chappell’s commitment to the task at hand, and the breadth of his powers, else it would have taken care of the many minor issues that have irritated the coach. And it may have underestimated Ganguly’s hunger to retain the captaincy. This is not a minor inconvenience like shoddy stadiums or a badly-run domestic league that can be swept under the matting track. This is in full public glare on primetime television, a language it understands well.

If India’s cricket fans are feeling especially let down, at least they can take heart from a strikingly similar situation at the venerable Football Association. The FA, so well-known that it doesn’t even have ‘England’ mentioned in the name, is faced with an underperforming, overpaid coach, a rift in the dressing room over a captain past his peak and a game that, fuelled by TV rights, is going beyond the reach of the common man. Its response to a decline in standards has been to devise ways of making even more money. The fans’ response, though in its very early stages, has been to try and take back control of their game. Maybe it’s time we did the same.