A couple of knots in your hanky

Dear Mr Muthiah,

I, in common with the rest of the cricket fans in the country, have been following your recent pronouncements with great interest. Quite natural, that interest -- after all, Indian cricket is in the throes of turmoil and as the head of the body that governs the game in this country, you are the person we look up to, to give us direction, to lead the game out of this mess.

In this context, I wonder if a copy of the CBI report has finally reached you? In passing, sir, I must express my deep shock, and regret, that you, the head of the BCCI, have been reduced to such a sorry pass -- imagine a situation where the august president of the BCCI has not been given a copy of a report concerning, and crucial to, the game where the rest of the country has read, digested, and discussed said report. This is shameful -- you should have been the first to have received, and read, that report, and I do hope you will take stern action against your secretary, who apparently did not even have the commonsense to simply ask the Delhi District Cricket Association to send an office boy to the office of the Sports Minister, where those copies were freely available, and fax it across to you.

That such a simple expedient was not thought of, and you were kept in the dark for so long, sir, is simply outrageous!

We sincerely hope you have now received the report. In case -- horrors -- you still haven't, then do note that it is available, in its entirety, E&OE, on many websites, including the official website of the CBI.

To revert to your comments, I was also outraged that my peers in the media kept asking you about incidents that do not concern you, since they took place before you took office as Board president. Only the churlish will point out that you have, for an entire decade, been intimately connected with cricket administration in this country; that you have been president of the TNCA for six years; that you were vice-president of the BCCI from 1998 to 1999; that it was while you were vice president that the BCCI appointed the Chandrachud Commission, also known as the Whitewash Commission...

We in the media naturally assumed that you, by virtue of having been a senior member of the administration at the time, might have had some idea of what was going on. Little did we know that your peers, Board president Raj Singh Dungarpur and Board secretary Jaywant Lele, treated you so shabbily and kept their little secrets from you.

On behalf of the media, therefore, may I apologise for pestering you with questions you could not be expected to answer? So very sorry, sir -- really and truly.

In passing, I might mention here that when you took over as vice-president, you replaced one Mr N Venkata Rao. Who was manager on India's tour of New Zealand, in 1994. And who, on his return, filed a tour report wherein he mentioned that certain Indian players were playing one game on the field, and another off it. But of course, as you so rightly pointed out, you cannot be expected to read old reports.

Thus, you might have missed the report filed by the captain and coach after India's last tour of the West Indies. You might have missed an earlier report, filed by one Mr Sunil Dev, after India's first tour of South Africa. Just a tip -- the latest Sidney Sheldon is not quite as hot as the reviews make it out to be, you might get more thrills putting that aside, and reading those reports.

Anyways. We won't talk of things that happened before your tenure. Instead, let us focus exclusively on certain events during your presidency.

Do you remember how the captain, and the team, were selected for the Australian tour? How Sachin Tendulkar made it a condition of his taking on the captaincy, that Mohammad Azharuddin and a couple of others should not be picked -- and even gave reasons for this?

One of those against whom Sachin Tendulkar set his face was a certain Nayan Mongia. And what was the result? Do you remember?

In case those events slipped your memory, this article, written at the time, might serve as an aide memoire.

This happened during your tenure, sir. Do you have any idea why it happened? Any clue who the man was, who pushed through Mongia's inclusion in the side?

Let's fast forward a few days. To the end of the Test series. By then, of course, India was losing miserably. And there was a huge public outcry, if you recall, for the immediate reinstatement of Mohammad Azharuddin in the side. The general perception at the time was that Sachin Tendulkar should be crucified, with Kapil Dev on the adjoining cross, for playing politics to keep Azhar out of the side. At the time, if you recall, both Tendulkar and Kapil Dev kept pointing out that they had been specifically told by the board that they should not discuss matters of selection. "Ask the selectors, they are the ones who can answer this question," Sachin kept saying.

Question: Why were the captain and coach told that they could not talk? But maybe we shouldn't ask you that question either. Because though India is a democracy, and the right to free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution, that Constitution was framed, and Independence achieved, before you took over as board president.

Another question: When the selectors, and the board secretary, were asked about why Azhar was not part of the squad, what was the response? "Ask Sachin."

Very convenient, was it not? To first warn Sachin that he couldn't talk, and then to direct all questions to him? What was the objective? To create an impression that Sachin was solely responsible for Azhar's exclusion. And to further condemn him. Did you, as the board president of the time, even know of all this, and wonder why this was happening?

Never mind. Remember the aftermath of the Test series? When the team management requested reinforcements for the ODI team? Robin Singh was named to fly down. The management said, we want more players. The request was conveyed telephonically to the chairman of selectors.

Remember? And do you remember, too, what happened? Chandu Borde got a call from the BCCI secretary, to the effect that the team management should be categorically informed that no other replacements would be provided, unless and until the management was prepared to accept Mohammad Azharuddin as part of the package.

Surely you remember? It was, after all, widely reported at the time.

So did it occur to you to wonder why? To ask why one official of the board deemed fit to insist that Azharuddin fly to Australia, in the process going against the team's expressly stated wishes?

Did you ask your colleague on the board by what authority he decided who should play and who should not?

Did it ever occur to you to wonder why so many officials, and selectors, have over the years been so very keen to bring Azharuddin back into the side, each time he found himself out of it? Oh, so sorry, I forgot -- we are not supposed to ask you about things that happened before your tenure. How about this one instance, that happened while you were very much in charge (at least, we hope you were in charge, though every available indicator is that the decisions were being taken elsewhere).

Just wondering, sir, and if this question is impertinent, do please ignore it -- but if you could think back to the day you took over as head of SPIC, did you, on that day and in the days thereafter, go through the company's past reports, and financial statements? Or did you say, merely, that what happened to the company in the past was none of your business, and you were only concerned with what happens during your tenure?

Going with your own argument, though, that the past is not something you need to bother with -- did you, by the simple expedient of lifting a telephone and dialling a few numbers, get in touch with your esteemed secretary and ask him, in view of what has come to light now, to explain his actions during your own presidency?

But no, I forgot -- you are still to read the CBI report, and therefore wouldn't know what the rest of the country is talking about.

How stupid of me! So sorry, sir, to have wasted so much of your time. Would it be alright if we got back to you say a year from now? By then, surely, the CBI report would have been received, and read, and digested?

We sincerely hope so. With best regards, then....

Prem.

Postscript: So very sorry to disturb you, sir, but a while ago, you had said something about introducing professionals into the BCCI? Your organisation had even put out advertisements in the leading newspapers, calling for qualified candidates?

Is it okay to ask, sir, if the recruitment process is any further ahead?

No hurry, of course -- I mean, having inserted those ads and convinced all of us and, most importantly, that pesky sports minister who was forever getting on your case about it, that the BCCI means business this time, we can now get back to business as usual, till the next time there is an outcry.

The only reason for asking, sir, was that you had mentioned that you will, very soon, be hiring a media manager to present the BCCI in the best possible light.

That seems to be a matter of some urgency, sir. To know why, please do read today's newspapers. Where your predecessor, one Mr Raj Singh Dungarpur, has told us all about the appointment of Mr John Wright as India's new coach, and the reasons thereof.

To quote Mr Dungarpur: "Wright is the right man for this as Marsh could not meet our demands and Chappell demanded an astronomical figure."

Sir, a professional media manager would have said, "The BCCI committee exhaustively evaluated all candidates. Keeping in mind that the coach should be able to spend all his time with the team, it was finally decided that Mr John Wright was the best man for the job."

Which would have left us all in the dark -- which of course is where the BCCI would like us to be, and where we are finding ourselves increasingly at home.

Instead, Mr Dungarpur came up with that statement. And we know now, that the BCCI, rather in the manner of petty dalals, went shopping for the cheapest option. Sort of like, 'Bloody hell, these fools in the media, and those other fools who follow cricket, keep yelling for a foreign coach, so just go out there and pick someone up, don't spend too much, let's just shut these people up and move on.'

At the very least, sir, Mr Dungarpur's statement is hardly fair to the man you have recruited, namely, Mr Wright, and who now bears the tag of 'cut-price coach' thanks to those unconsidered remarks.

Imagine if, on the day you became BCCI chairman, your predecessor announced your appointment with the words, "We decided that Mr Muthiah was the right man for the job, since he didn't make too many demands on us and we figured that he would be too busy running his industry to meddle too much in the BCCI's workings" -- how would you have felt, sir? Not quite the way you would want to start your tenure, wouldn't you agree?

With renewed regards, and apologies for being such a pest and taking up so much of your time,

Prem

Prem Panicker

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