Surjit S Bhalla & Aditya Wali: 75 years old , what have you wrought?

CALLING THE BLUFF

This is the first of a small series of articles on what we Indians enjoy the most, and what ails us the most. We are not talking Bollywood because more often than not we don't enjoy it so much, and there is not that much that ails it except its method of financing.

We are not talking politicians because while they certainly ail us, we don't enjoy them so much, except perhaps the comic brilliance of Laloo Yadav.

There are enough hints here to warm our imagination, if not our pockets. What ails us the most is the BCCI, not the upstart, corrupt, failed, terrorist-financing Pakistani bank of yesteryear, but a 75-year-old hallowed (though not financially hollow) institution called the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

It combines Bollywood in that it finances cricket, the same game we enjoyed before it became a political statement. And it literally combines Mr Yadav, who, in something that would do Mr Ripley proud, is the head of the Bihar Cricket Association.

Perhaps Mr Yadav enjoyed watching cricket when he was young; no one has told us that he ever played any cricket, not certainly among the BCCI affiliates that sponsor and finance cricket in Bihar, and India.

But he must enjoy cricket and be interested in questions of who should open India's batting, and what strategy Team India should employ to beat the South Africans.

How much he must enjoy cricket is revealed by his team-mates as reported in the accompanying table. Of the 31 cricket associations under the godfather umbrella of the BCCI, no less than 12 (and we are still counting) are controlled by politicians.

Why are Indian politicians so interested in cricket? It is not that being a politician should rule one out of the possibility of serving the country even more than these esteemed individuals have been elected for.

But there is something unfair about it all"" why should a few elected officials have so much burden put on their shoulders; we mean, other people should also have a chance to serve the country.

While obsessive patriotism may be a cause, let us rule it out of consideration on grounds of temporary insanity. A likely possibility could be love of cricket, but then why not choose Mr Narayana Murthy, or Mr Azim Premji , or we daresay, even a 13- year-old Sahil Bhalla. Certainly one of the 31 posts could go to ardent lovers. A third possibility could be knowledge of cricket (too subtle a distinction between love and knowledge but we are talking about the leaders of our country).

This requirement has a definite appeal, and is indeed the practice in most other cricket institutions in the world""except Pakistan, which is identical to us, in almost requiring politicians to head their cricket administration.

The people who unquestionably have knowledge about cricket are former players such as Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar, K Srikanth. The list can go on, perhaps should, but you get our drift.

Last we heard, the defence minister, Pranab Mukherjee had more pressing things on his mind than worrying about why we still prepare the worst pitches in the world, and the HRD minister, Arjun Singh, needs to bother more about what should be done about education so that children do not aspire to be cricket administrators. Then why are they helping prepare, what in terms of results is a lousy dish, sorry, pitch.

We are not palmists, nor astrologers, nor psychics, though we are surrounded by several of them. We are economists and very early on we were taught that among all the six billion people of the world, the same red blood runneth through.

And since we are neither blue-blooded politicians nor Communists (i.e. unselfishly serving the people, something red blood does not allow), the only reason for a vocation is to make money. In other words, greed is red and red is greed.

Greed may not make the world go round, but it certainly helps consistently explain why Indian politicians gravitate towards it. (As we said before, other explanations are possible.) Consider the following statistic. Technically, and legally, the cricket associations are akin to a private club, and with pride they behave as such.

Take for instance, the nations capital city and its very own cricket governing body, the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association. Only 5 per cent of its members are from the cricketing fraternity.

Then again some would argue, one doesn't need to be a cricketer to be an administrator, one perhaps needs to be skilled otherwise and know how to spend judiciously.

Total liquor expenditures at the DDCA club over the last 11 years, for example, have exceeded the money spent by DDCA on cricket-related matters like coaching and the promotion of cricket.

How much do they drink at that club? How much can you drink? Alternatively, how is it possible for a cricket association to spend so little on cricket?

This is all by means of an introduction to what is ailing us. Why is talented Team India not performing well on the cricket field""that is the question. It seems forever since we played well, though it has only been a year.

Glenn McGrath, that straightforward fast-bowling mate, expressed child- like bewilderment when he landed in India at the time of the BCCI election!

There was more politics involved in a BCCI election than is possibly involved in choosing a beauty queen. Stop to think about it""do you know any corporate body whose chairman is elected? Selected by other experts (or family blood) yes; but elected, think about it!

But the Australians knew, and McGrath hinted as such, that politics would do Indian cricket in. If electoral fortunes are being jockeyed for, and financial fortunes possibly mislaid, then what can pawns do? They can worry about where their next meal is going to come from. Precisely.

Lot bigger things were (and always are) at stake when a BCCI election takes place than on the field of misfortunes of Indian cricket. If a child treads an awry path the parents instinctively try to advocate sense, but if the parents are busy leading skewed lives, the children seem lost as well.

Much as what seems to be happening with Team India and its parent. It is not the loss to Australia that is the cause of concern; rather it is the pathetic nature of the loss (even Hindu gods were not on the side of India""they conspired to rain on the one day at the office that could have gone well). The bottom line""was it just poor cricket or is it just poor cricket management?

To rephrase Shakespeare (Twelfth Night), if politics be the dope of all, play on. Or can you? Perhaps not. It used to be a British gentleman's game; we have Indianised it and made it exclusively a people institution""of the politicians, for the politicians and by the politicians.

But somehow, somewhere it is all too familiar. The BCCI is the microcosm that is India. Rahul Mehra has been running a quixotic battle against corruption, and feudalism, and yes even the BCCI; we wish him well, hope he succeeds, but how much can he change (Indian) nature?