Boria Majumdar
I write this not in a state of anger but in a state of disbelief. Much is being written about what will happen to the fate of Ferozshah Kotla as an international venue, whether or not Delhi will lose its rights to host World Cup 2011 and whether Delhi Daredevils will use the Kotla as their home base come March 2010 when IPL returns home.
Not once is it being said that these pitches are a regular reality in our domestic fixtures. Sri Lanka being a heavyweight international side had the guts to protest and walk out of the game. It was fantastic to see Mahendra Singh Dhoni agreeing with Kumar Sangakkara and going ahead with the abandonment of the fixture. However, had it been a domestic game, it can easily be conjectured what would have happened. Play would have gone on unabated, no one would have been pulled up and the players, or more importantly Indian cricket, would have lost out. Even if players suffered injuries, thanks to the pitch, not one of us would have known because the cricket fraternity hardly cares about what’s happening to our domestic game.
An unworthy bowler, thanks to a fantastic performance on a track like this, would have forced himself into national reckoning and a quality batsman would have lost out due to a poor score on an unplayable wicket. By not looking into the root of the problem, the BCCI, and in this case the DDCA, is only contributing to the weakening of the edifice of the game in India.
It started at Indore on 25 December 1997. It continued at Kanpur against South Africa in April last year with the match getting over in 3 days. And it continues to torment us at the end of 2009 at Delhi.. In the last 12 years India has progressed to becoming the financial powerhouse of the world game, we have now wrested the mantle of the world’s number 1 Test side from Australia and South Africa and we are perilously close to becoming the world’s number 1 team in the one-day fifty over format as well. Yet, we can’t get our basics right at our national capital and continue to portray ourselves as inept, inefficient, power hungry men unable to assume responsibility of being the world’s premier cricket nation.
It may well be that the ICC refuses to ban DDCA.. India’s financial clout can surely do the trick yet again and impose serious constraints on the ICC. But the truth is our own game will continue to suffer and real talent will be lost in the process.
The abandonment of the Delhi fixture isn’t a shame for the DDCA alone. Rather, it draws attention to something much more significant—it draws attention, finally, to the rotten underbelly of Indian cricket, where ineptitude can still pass thanks to our growing financial clout.
It was impressive to see the BCCI assume immediate responsibility and disband the pitches and grounds committee. Just days earlier had the BCCI doubled the salaries of the committee members. That these men are accountable was perhaps the only silver lining in what has been a dark episode in the history of Indian cricket. While the BCCI deserves praise for being proactive, it was shocking to see the DDCA pass the buck. Just days earlier Chetan Chauhan was on television suggesting that the pitch will play true and had been rolled for 10 days with a 1 ton roller. He was confident it was an excellent cricket wicket.. The same Chauhan, someone I have much respect for, looked extremely nervous at the post abandonment press conference where he tried to pass the buck upon the BCCI’s pitch committee. Frankly speaking, passing the buck won’t work on this occasion. Had this happened at Lords, Mick Hunt would surely have resigned. At Kolkata, Probir Mukherjee would have been in the line of fire. In Chauhan’s case, Daljit Singh and co can’t act as shields. And only if they pay for their inefficiency will justice be done.
We, the ordinary cricket fan, have been wronged. It is our game and we need to set things right.
