NEW DELHI, JULY 8: At last a player has shown the courage to speak up against those who were deciding India's strategy in the cricket World Cup. The revelations by Robin Singh may not be startling to those closely associated with the game but even for them there is enough juice to question the commitment of those who were supposed to guide the team.For those who saw India stammer and stutter and finally stumble in its campaign for a semi-final qualification, doubts that not all was well with the team was too obvious to be ignored. From Sachin Tendulkar's batting order, the team composition or the match-by-match strategy, there were confusing signals emanating from the top. There was always this lurking suspicion that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing.Even in the best of times, it has been difficult to manage the Indian XI and here we were confronted with a situation where the team was being controlled by three managers - Bobby Simpson, Anshuman Gaekwad and Brijesh Patel. As ifthat was not enough, the team had a doctor and a physical trainer to take care of the fitness of the players. Yet, the team was among the worst in terms of fitness, but that is another story.The Indian Board had also been magnanimous in equipping the team with a scorer whose job it was to provide the think-tank with all the statistical details of each player match after match. No other team in the competition had the support of so many `brainy' outsiders and the forecast from the Board president, Raj Singh Dungarpur was: ``India will win the World Cup.''He, perhaps, had not heard of a saying that too many cooks spoil the broth. If Simpson, Gaekwad and Patel among themselves could not clarify the doubts of the players in as simple a matter as the rules of the tournament, one wonders what they must have done when faced with a real situation in a match which required quick response from the captain and from the dressing room.For instance, when it was becoming obvious in that crucial match againstZimbabwe that India were going to exceed the time limit in bowling their quota of 50 overs, why did the think tank not try to hasten things and ask men like Ajay Jadeja and others with shorter run-up to bowl the end overs?Going by what Robin has to say, and by one's own experience of the World Cup, the answer is simple: No one seemed bothered.But the tragedy is that those who are governing the game in the country are themselves responsible for landing Indian cricket in this mess. Instead of introspecting seriously, the Board's response to Robin's utterances made in a press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday had to be predictable. They must have contacted Robin after reading the papers in the morning and, needless to say, the gutsy all-rounder had no choice but to deny all that he had said. But be sure, messrs Dungarpur and Lele, nobody is going to get fooled by these denials anymore.The World Cup was an opportunity for India to show that the passion with which the masses follow the game has its basis inthe talent of its cricketers. Instead, it became an opportunity for all those who had anything to do with the game to make a sojourn to England. Right from the president of the Board to its treasurer, they were all present with their families in England, even after India had made its exit from the tournament.In the lobby of the hotel in London where the Indian team was staying, Board's joint secretary Jyoti Bajpai was watching on television Steve Waugh's century in the Super Six stage against South Africa.His friend quipped: ``You should tell Mohammed Azharuddin to watch Waugh and learn what it means to be a captain of the side.'' To their discomfort, a gentleman standing behind them said: ``The Board should also learn from Australia how to administer the game in the country.''Is anyone listening?
