Two to Tango

Just as every player who plays for India is expected to show passion and commitment, and dare I say results, so must every official of the BCCI. Each member has to believe that he too is a player and that he too is contributing to the image of Indian cricket. An official derives his importance from the performance of the players who play the game and the audiences who flock to watch it. He is one of only four genuine stakeholders in Indian cricket; the players, the audiences, the sponsors and the officials.

Sometimes administrators like to believe that the other three do not count and that is a very fine symptom of arrogance and stagnation. You can see that in some governments around the world as well!

Indian cricket has had, and still does, all kinds of officials. In fact, it mirrors the political scene quite accurately for there are the forward-looking and the efficient alongside the regressive and the incompetent. Each has a vote and so each is equal in the administration and that is why you get moments of optimism and frustration side by side.

If the last two years have been largely positive and progressive, it is because Jagmohan Dalmiya has had an agenda. In seeking to make India the hub of world cricket, it was important for him that India played well, and against everybody, and he knew he could not do that without being on the same side of the fence as the players. He changed his approach, and his views on the coach and physio from whom he had demanded an explanation with the intention of sacking them. Now, Dalmiya, the senior players, the selectors and the coach sit in the same basket. It is like your doctor, your diet and your intent working together, it leads to good health.

There are two things about Dalmiya that stand out. He is passionate about Indian cricket and he is aggressive in his approach. Subtlety must have crossed his path, if it ever did, many moons ago and it is not welcome in his parlour. Such aggression, quite understandably, did not fit into the plans of many in world cricket and they tried to paint him as they do a Mugabe today. But he is thick-skinned too. In many ways he is right for Indian cricket but he, like many others before him, has to bow before the vote, the greatest enemy of Indian cricket.

It is the vote that causes him to take firm action against an Abhijit Kale but go slow on administrators who have cases registered against them. It is the vote that causes the administrator to have a different set of rules from the player and it is the vote that prevents Indian cricket from being run like a professional corporation, like an Infosys or a Hero Honda.

I take those two names with serious intent for both are in the top league of organisations in their category anywhere in the world. I believe India’s cricket administration needs to be in a similar position and I believe it can be if it gets rid of the menace of the vote. Imagine Narayana Murthy or Nandan Nilekani having to contest against a middle-level manager to run their company and having to tell the manager that he would be given major concessions if he withdrew? We need a chief executive, appointed on the basis of his track record and ability and answerable to a board of directors, not someone who has to win an election every twelve months.

For Indian cricket to progress from here, not over two years but twenty, the BCCI has to seek to become a centre of excellence. (And, in passing, hope Mr Murli Manohar Joshi doesn’t know!) It needs to develop world-class coaches, physios and trainers. And find a few spinners.

But all that can be achieved if the desire exists. Dalmiya has it, now the BCCI needs to embrace it. The left foot must follow the right and if it does, India will become an unstoppable force in world cricket. Otherwise Indian cricket will remain in the arms of frustration, like a ferris wheel, going up and down.