BCCI proposes - and disposes

Prem Panicker

Close on the heels of the meeting, in the Cricket Club of India premises in Bombay, of the national selection committee to pick the team to tour the West Indies, came the meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The agenda was wide-ranging, the results pretty much predictable. Follows, a quick minutes of the BCCI meeting:

Too much of a good thing?

A huge hue and cry has been made, in recent times, about the enormous amount of international cricket that India has played in recent times.

Well, folks, the good news is that like Oliver Twist, the BCCI wants more. Much, much more.

Here is how it goes: Come February 25, the Indian team leaves for the West Indies, and plays five Tests and four one-dayers, the last one on May 3. Barely six days later, India hosts the quadrangular Independence Cup tournament, featuring top teams Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand besides the hosts themselves.

Then there is a two-month break - but before we rent the air with hosannas, let's remember that this merely means the board hasn't finished filling up its calendar yet.

In the event, the carnival begins again in August. with the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka followed by two Tests against the host nation. From there, India moves on to Toronto, Canada, for the second episode of the Sahara Cup, involving five one-day games against Pakistan. Then the Indians will go to Pakistan for more one-dayers, as a reciprocal gesture given that Pakistan is coming to India to play the Independence Cup. (While on the subject, if the BCCI wanted to schedule reciprocal games against Pakistan, why not have just those, without having the two teams first play in India, then in Toronto, then in Pakistan?)

More reciprocity in October, with the Sri Lankans visiting India for three Tests and an as yet unspecified number of one-day internationals. Following which, the Indian team leaves for Sharjah, for yet another one-day tournament in November-December. Subsequently, India hosts Australia in a Test and one-day series at home, between February-April 1998.

And that is as far as the BCCI has got thus far - but not to worry. Given some time, the BCCI will ensure that not a month goes by without its quota of Tests and one-dayers. And if in the process this young Indian side grows old before its time, and ends up either nursing crippling injuries or, worse, battling mental fatigue, then that's just hard lines, right?

Making a pitch for pace

And so wisdom, finally, dawns - the BCCI has apparently woken up to the fact that if Indian batsmen are to do well in international cricket, then the wickets at home will need to be more pacy, more in tune with the wickets India encounters on foreign tours.

Thus, the BCCI - in consultation with its technical committee headed by Sunil Gavaskar - has decided to seek the services of an international expert in the matter of preparing pacier wickets.

Thus, Les Bardett - curator of the Adelaide Oval and part of the faculty of New Zealand's institute for pitch preparation (the only one of its kind in the world) - will fly down to India sometime in April to hold a seminar for Indian ground staff on the subject.

A step in the right direction, certainly - but then again, a seminar, I suspect, will solve nothing.

If the board is serious about the need to prepare fast tracks, then a series of urgent measures need to be put in place. Step one would obviously be to appoint one former Test player as curator for each ground, his job being to supervise pitch preparation and ensure that wickets used for both domestic and international competition are more in tune with international standards.

Step two would be to draw up, and insist on, minimum standards in pitch preparation - and equally importantly, to make the various cricket associations answerable for the pitches in their bailiwick. A ready example exists in England where, it will be recalled, several sub-standard pitches used in the last county season attracted the wrath of the TCCB. Inquiries were conducted into the nature of over-fast or overly crumbly wickets, and the errant venues warned that a second transgression would entail an official order that no first class fixtures would be played at the concerned venue.

The Board needs to adopt a similar tough stance, if it is serious about improving the nature of cricketing tracks in India.

L'Affaire Chandrakant Pandit

In course of its meeting, the BCCI discussed the sacking of former Bombay captain and now Madhya Pradesh star Chandrakant Pandit.

Those who came in late will recall that Kishen Rungta, chairman of the Central Zone selection committee and member of the national selection panel, had sacked Pandit on the grounds that the senior player "did not keep the interests of the team in mind".

The BCCI called for, and has received, a statement from Rungta on the incident. A decision will be made after Chandrakant Pandit submits a similar report, detailing the incident as he sees it.

The Chauhan imbroglio

Former Test off spinner Rajesh Chauhan has been named as one of the bowlers - along with the likes of Sri Lanka's Muthaiah Muralitharan - whose action is under study by the International Cricket Conference.

Whereupon hangs a tale - Chauhan's action has in fact been suspect for quite a while now. Interestingly, when he last played for India - versus the West Indies, at home, in 1994-1995, no less than Michael Holding had commented on the fact with telling sarcasm.

Watching Chauhan send down a good 10 overs, Holding from the commentators' box came up with a statement that has become a minor classic of its kind: "Maan," said the former Windies quick, "I've been watching Chauhan all day, and he ain't bowled a single ball!"

"We received some video clippings and the official ICC letter two months back," says BCCI secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya. "On the advice of our technical committee chairman Sunil Gavaskar, it has been decided that further action will be taken at the end of the current season. Meanwhile, it must be mentioned that our umpires have found nothing wrong in Chauhan's action."

What precisely the BCCI will do to counter the allegation has not, however, been decided yet.

A school for cricket

Under the chairmanship of former BCCI president Inderjit Singh Bindra, a committee has been comprised to study the proposal for the setting up of a National Cricket Academy, on the lines of the one in Australia. "The site for the academy will be finalised when the BCCI general body meets in August," said Dalmiya.

Meanwhile, the cricket associations of Hyderabad, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, the Bombay-based Cricket Club of India, Karnataka, Bengal, Vidharbha and Himachal Pradesh have all expressed interest in hosting such an academy.

Awards and rewards

The BCCI, in course of its meeting, decided to shortlist Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Nayan Mongia as its nominees for this year's Arjuna Awards.

Former Test batsman Vijay Hazare will become the third player, after Lala Amarnath and Mushtaq Ali, to receive the C K Nayadu Award, which carries a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh. Interestingly, one of the names to figure in the discussions at which Hazare was finally picked belonged to veteran cricket writer K N Prabhu.

"It has been decided," said Dalmiya, "that henceforth, this award will not be confined to cricketers but will also be given to other people involved in the game, including journalists."

The BCCI has decided to grant Rs 25,000 from its general benevolent fund to former Test player Ramnath Parkar as a humanitarian gesture. Parkar has been confined to bed with brain damage following an accident he suffered last year. The Board asked the Bombay Cricket Association to submit a report on Parkar's health, and further aid will be sanctioned after the report is studied, Dalmiya indicated.

Others to receive ad hoc awards include Delhi umpire Rajan Mehra and Bangalore-based coach Keki Tarapore (RS 25,000 each), Hyderabad-based coach E B Aibara (Rs 10,000 in addition to an earlier grant of Rs 25,000).

Sledging and related matters

"The BCCI will support the Indian cricket team to the hilt," said Jagmohan Dalmiya, whose candidacy for the chairmanship of the ICC was incidentally confirmed at the BCCI meeting.

He was replying to questions about the incidents of sledging on the South African tour - most especially the one involving Allan Donald and Rahul Dravid - as also match referee Barry Jarman's perceived bias against the Indian players and management.

"We cannot, however, take action against anyone on the basis of newspaper reports. We have called for official reports from captain Tendulkar, coach Madan Lal and manager Sunil Dev, and will decide on whether a protest to the ICC is justified after studying these reports," Dalmiya said.