An open letter to Sanjay Manjrekar

Dear Sanjay:

I have been a great fan of yours and it has to do with both your batting techniques and your commentary skills. I always thought you would go on to become what Dravid is today for Indian cricket, but for many reasons you could not achieve that. None the less, I still consider that you had a great underused potential of Indian cricket.

I follow cricket very closely and even play it religiously here in Arizona, USA. I also feel I know certain things about the game however small it may be in comparison to your knowledge about the game. So I always believed, you were also one of the finest cricketing brains in the world as far as commentary goes. But off late, I have seen a big deviation from your own self. For some reason, it seems you have agreed to change yourself and say something which is hard to imagine. Yes I am referring to your being over critical about Sachin Tendulkar off late. Initially when you started it, accusing him of playing slowly, for his own milestones and also asking for them to be dropped in favor of young blood, I had definitely supported your thoughts but slowly I realized a change in you. That change surprised me. You have criticized him over limits for no reasons and when he has played well, you have not bothered to mention about it in any of your articles off late. It seems you want a speed ticket to stardom by criticizing the best of the cricketer in the country and seems you have learnt it from media. Do something sensational if not good to earn name, fame and money. Is it what you are doing now a day in the name of trash commentary? Apply some common sense sir, and analyze his contributions to Indian cricket in the last 1-2 years only and you would see he is still one of the best India has to offer. Why should the age be a criterion for selection as long as he is producing the results? Didn’t we experiment too much with Raina and saw what happened with that?

I will tell you very clearly, you are now in a position where people hate you for what you are and have forgotten what you were or what you have contributed to Indian cricket. Fair criticism when someone is not playing is fair enough and it has to be done but criticizing every move and every X Y and Z thing about a certain man who has done so much to Indian cricket is really a crime. How could you accuse him off feigning injuries? How could you blame him that he plays for himself and targets his own milestones? How could you blame him that he fails under pressure? Did you forget he has 50+ MOMs award in the ODIs? Now please do not tell me those are not for winning the matches and those are actually for milestones otherwise you would question those people who decide the person who significantly contribute in winning the game and declare him MOM.

I truly believe the age factor does slow up your reactions and thinking processes as you cite examples off against him, but I can see this happening to you. This doesn’t apply to greats literally the way you mean. Earn your bread but do not kill someone, that’s a crime.

Once your fan…

Anand

Captain: Kingfishers Cricket Club, Arizona , USA

(http://www.123kings.com)

Enough of excuses Mr. Chappel, what do you want?

As if the recent Symonds episode was not enough, another episode on racial blame has surfaced again through someone called Mr. Greg Chappel. I am sure we all remember him as India’s coach who talked about his plans and processes for 2 years and how he is going to build a unit who will do reasonably well in the mission world cup 2007. Although it will be immature to blame him alone for India’s infamous early exit from the world cup 2007, yet being the coach of a team, he must get a pie of the blame. Just imagine if India had won the T20 world cup under his regime, what would have happened? He would have been the first person to come forward and claim a big pie out of the success story as to how the processes and the plans that he set up for 2 years had become fruitful now. He has been like this always. I was one of the admirers of him in India when he talked about youth, processes and plans, but if those buzzwords are going to fetch you nothing then they are good for nothing. What shocked me more was his walking away from the scene and not taking even 1% of the responsibility of the disastrous outcome. You are entitled to receive all the acclaims when you produce results by work or by chance, in the same manner you should also be ready to accept the blame of the failure if it has come your way for whatsoever reasons.

If we rewind back to Chappel days as Indian team coach and analyze his statements, we would be able to see his true personality as a sportsperson. First he blames Ganguly to be playing tricks to save his own captaincy and then Ganguly gets dropped in a shocking manner, later on when he makes a comeback and scores runs, Chappel is quick to comment that the break has helped Ganguly in a big way and that is why he is scoring runs now a days and that’s what he had suggested him a year back. If he really thought, the break would help him, why did he himself not ask the selectors to include him again after the break of say few months? Remember, recently he also opined that he never wanted Ganguly back.

India lost in the world cup and at a time when as a coach he should have taken the responsibility of the failure, he decided to walk away from the scene and also didn’t mind making comments about the team’s failure openly in the media. He wanted to justify the fact that he was not responsible for any of these as he didn’t get the team he wanted and had players whom he didn’t want. Obviously he was hinting at those “OLD” players. He talked about new buzzwords like fresh legs and young impressionable mind and by doing so he tried his best to wash the minds of everyone in an attempt to divert everyone’s attention from him to other reasons of failure. To me it seems, he read the Indian media pretty well, and knew that whatever media speaks, becomes the mantra of Indian crowd and they believe it in immensely and to be true, although sad it is, this is a fact. He is such a shrewd personality that he wanted a clean chit from all his wrong doings, so that his career as a coach remains unblemished even in the future. He did point out a few areas of concern for the Indian team, but tell me, as a coach was that the right time for him to expose those hidden facts to the media? It clearly indicates, he never gelled well with the team and he only wanted to walk away unblemished. After all we can only expect this from someone who has a past record of cruel play and tactics in a game that is called gentlemen’s game (Remember that underarm episode?).

As a coach your main job was not to teach the internals of batting techniques to the players like Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly. Your job was to build the team as a working unit wherein every player will have his goal clear in his mind on a match by match basis. Formulate those plans and strategies depending upon the opposition and most importantly, encourage and motivate those 15 players when the chips are down for some reasons. But what did you do for two years that most of the players seem to boycott you? What processes you followed that those had discouraging effects on the players of the caliber of Sachin, Saurav and Yuvraj Singh? What made Sachin went public? He hasn’t been so for the last 17 years, so what is that you did that made him change to this extent? And another player supported him too. Did your processes somehow worked negatively for the team? Did they broke the team into camps and demoralized players? Did you unknowingly killed their enthusiasm and always pressurized them by constantly questioning their effort? What sort of coach you were? Enough said. A manager can’t get his works done by questioning his workers on almost everything they are doing. This is a self defeating move. Isn’t this a very basic lesson? And isn’t something that a coach of any sport should know it by heart?

He walks off the scene and goes into oblivion as if he would never come back but soon makes a return as the coach of Rajasthan Cricket Academy (RCA) and is all over media again. He justifies his coming back to India by saying; India is the place to work for cricket as it offers extreme challenges. Incidentally, team India wins T20 world cup under the regime of newly appointed captain MS Dhoni and in an interview Chappel is quick enough to take a part of the success under his belt by saying how the youth has done it and why this was a part of his vision but no one was ready to listen to him. He also praises MS Dhoni as one of the best person he has ever met not just in the cricketing field but otherwise also. In my opinion that was an attempt by him to accept those who gave results and to blame those who didn’t. How shrewd can it get?

And now the final episode comes when Mr. Greg Chappel remembers his old days and declares that he was the victim of racial attack earlier this year in Orissa and BCCI didn’t take appropriate steps on that and sidelined the issue. This issue had disturbed him and he was hurt by all this. Why all this drama now? To me it seems again as if, he is still looking for reasons to hide his failures as a coach. He somehow wants to show how tough it was to lead the Indian team here amongst all these drama. So in a way, somewhere he has the message to convey that he was not responsible for what happened and perhaps other people (read BCCI, old players, media etc) was responsible. He is once again brain washing the mind of junta and not to forget this is what he truly believes in. The incident occurred close to a One-Day game against West Indies in January this year. A worker of a regional political outfit got past the police cordon at the Biju Patnaik Airport and hit Chappell on the back. And in this light, the incident was nothing but a shameful attempt by the regional political outfit to make waves of news about its launch in the Orissa region. Nothing more could be read out of this even if you read between the lines.

As the coach he believes that the players would follow him. That would certainly happen the best way when he is coaching young guns because as he says, a young mind is impressionable and can be molded as per someone’s wishes. So what does this mean? It should not be hard to conclude that his wishes that everyone follows his orders and commands in the Indian camp were not met with appropriately because Indian team consists of big stars who are treated like heroes in their own backyard. You can’t command them the way you want to command a kid. In this light, I realize he failed to understand Indian culture and Indian people and more importantly those players who were his real weapons of success. So, no surprise that the results were a forgone conclusion. For God’s sake Mr. Chappel, learn from your mistakes and stop beating around the bush as it is not going to fetch you anything.

BCCI: Board of Comedians and Cartoons in India

One of my friends recently cracked a joke revealing what BCCI actually meant: Board of Comedians and Cartoons in India. You may laugh at this revelation but if you have followed the Indian cricket administration even for the last 5-6 months, you would agree on the aptness of the full form of this acronym. Let us try to evaluate this. Do they really control cricket in India? Are they really administrators to qualify for a Board? An honest answer to these two questions will always be NO.

After every loss of Indian team, every one blames those XI players. They are criticized for their every move on the field and everything they have done seems to fetch a defeat. In this regard you would always hear a famous quote on India’s greatest batsman ever, Sachin Tendulkar, that whenever he plays, India loses. How wise is that? Scoring runs would result in a defeat. With every loss, thousands of cricket experts are born and they want to make a point or two. Why the captain did X and why the bowler didn’t bowl Y and how he dropped the catch? There would be plenty of reasons for the loss and people would be on look out for those XI players. It is good that for some reasons they are treated as heroes and are not easily available on Indian streets. But is this the problem? India’s shameful exit from the 2007 world cup was really embarrassing for Indian cricket fans and more for those who are fanatic fans, but who are to be blamed? The cricketers, yes to some extent they are because they could not execute the plans they had in their mind and they could not deliver under pressure. But let us look a little further, who sent them in the world cup? You got it.

Why are we blaming cricketers who go there and try their best to win the game. If they are not capable, it is not their mistake. Their bosses who selected them made the mistake. If some employees turn out to be incompetent in a company, the questions are asked to their bosses as to why they were recruited in the first place? This is a very basic set up in a professional administration. Do we have this basic set up in BCCI? Are the administrators accountable for the losses of Team India? Are they under the same kind of pressure as the players are? Since the selection committee, selects the team, it should be criticized and hammered for the team losses. They should be made accountable for the performance of the team and the way cricketers are dropped or fired, they should also feel the heat. And believe me, everything will automatically fall in place, next time; their selection is always going to be better.

For every loss, there is a knee jerk reaction from the selectors, drop a few players and bring in a few new ones. Sehwaag was doing okay in the tests and badly in the ODIs, but he is dropped first from the tests and then from the ODIs. Recently, Sehwaag, the opener, is brought back having done nothing in the domestic level after being dropped for 5 months in place of Rahul Dravid who is actually a middle order batsman. Are we trying to equate Mango with Banana? Bring a middle order batsman in place of a middle order batsman and bring a spinner in place of a spinner. It is so simple to understand.

Now a day, the selection panel sees the performance of a player in a game or two and gives him a chance for the next 2 games. Team is selected on a match-by-match basis. Imagine about the confidence of the player and just think what kind of plan they would have in mind for the opposition? No wonder some of them play so selfishly, after all everyone wants to have a good career in the chosen area. Inexplicable is the case when youngsters like RP Sharma or S Badrinath are chosen in the team for 2-3 games and they never get a chance to play, and they are subsequently dropped. If you had no place for them, you should have never selected and if you selected them, you should give them a fair amount of chances even to be qualified to be dropped. Do the selectors do not understand this simple thing? Do they understand what would be the morale of those young players when they are dumped like this? In my opinion, this is just a way for the selectors to appease the mass and the media. They select them for some games when those young guns become talk of the media for some reasons and as soon as it pacifies, they are dropped for the same reasons. The chief selector is more in the news and before the cameras than an aspiring model. Perhaps they want to cover up for the missed limelight during their era.

BCCI does nothing but makes money. Those 15 cricketers are nothing but its money making machines. Schedule tours mindlessly, no plan to give sufficient time in between those tours so that they could prepare themselves mentally for it, all these shows how inept BCCI is as an organization. Cricket is not the number one Agenda of BCCI, this is just the process to achieve what they have number 1 in their Agenda and that is to make money. Add to this the credentials of those who are heading the BCCI. The head of the sport body is an agriculture minister at a time when farmers are reportedly committing suicides on a regular basis. And all he does is to concentrate on seeing a few of those matches, to reprimand the selectors to concentrate on their jobs and to treat seniors well. Why do we expect such an inapt organization to be productive enough to produce good results?

In spite of all these things, if team India wins its 50% of the matches, I think the team is really doing well. The fact is, Indian team wins now and then because of individual brilliance as we really posses’ big talents in our team. We should be thankful to them who give us a reason to smile every now and then, in spite of them working under in-competitive bosses. It is tough to be productive when your boss doesn’t want to work towards your main goal and it is almost impossible when he is inept, unaware and irresponsible. BCCI administration possesses all these qualities.

The results from the individuals are as good as the administration that controls them. If the expected results ate not coming our ways, the administration should also get a pie of the blame in the same way it gets most of the pie of the revenue that it generates out of the cricket matches played by those players. But they hardly control cricket in India and they hardly are any administrators to be qualified to be a part of a board. Their comic and mindless reactions and not actions simply qualify them to be a part of Board of Cartoons and Comedians in India.