Pitching it wrong

Two statements give you an insight into the farce that took place at Delhi’s Ferozeshah Kotla on December 27, when the final India-Sri Lanka ODI was abandoned.

Two statements give you an insight into the farce that took place at Delhi’s Ferozeshah Kotla on December 27, when the final India-Sri Lanka ODI was abandoned.

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Former Indian captain Anil Kumble, who has held the cricket ground in the Capital as his favourite ever since his 10-wicket haul again Pakistan in 1999, wrote, “it should not surprise anyone that there was a problem with the pitch at the Ferozeshah Kotla.” In the aftermath of the incident, a senior India cricketer from Delhi told the Hindustan Times, “I can’t say much, but this much I can say with certainty, there’s no hope for any improvement at the Delhi & District Cricket Association.”

Don’t assume that the grounds in other parts of the country are immune to such fiascos. In recent times we’ve had floodlight failures, water-logging and stands collapsing in stadia across India.

Cricket is the sport the masses in India love the most. But administrators across the nation do not apply themselves enough to improving infrastructure. The BCCI has principal office bearers, committees, sub-committees, zonal associations, state bodies, but no one really in charge of the game as such.

For long, those who did not live in the city perceived the DDCA as Daku, Daru, Cards Association. When you walk into the stadium on a non-match day, you go past the Outswinger bar and the card room before you get near the playing arena. If you think this a coincidence of architecture, sneak a peek into the DDCA’s balance sheet.

The 2009 inventory lists a couple of interesting entries in the stock section: Liquor Rs 92,6909, Playing Cards Rs 22,212 (under the income head Playing Card Receipts accounts for Rs 1,29,115). Amazingly, the stocks of cricket balls, something you might consider a crucial expense for a cricket association, is about a third of liquor.

But these are piffling numbers. Lakhs and thousands are not figures the DDCA has had to worry about in a long time. In the last year alone, they received Rs 39.3 crore from the Board of Control for Cricket in India in infrastructure subsidies. They accepted another 14 crore from the BCCI towards the Corpus Fund. And then there’s the small matter of Rs 10.8 crore from Indian Premier League income.

Surely, you’d think, a body that received this much money, would be capable of producing an acceptable cricket pitch. But the beauty of cricket is that it’s not merely about the money. Otherwise, the most developed countries would routinely produce the best teams. Like the Olympics, where the United States of America chalks up more, and brighter, medals than anyone else.

Unlike many other sports, cricket depends on conditions to produce a contest. While there are many issues influencing the game, experts believe the solution lies in balancing the contest between bat and ball. This is what produces a close finish, whether in Tests, ODIs or Twenty20s.

Ian Chappell, former Australian captain, took into account the advances in bats and said: “It’s hard to stop progress and nobody should be castigated for trying to improve their product, but the problem is, they can’t make corresponding improvements to the ball. It’s not like golf, where the fairways can be lengthened to accommodate the improvement in clubs and balls.”

Certainly there is place for multi-tasking, with experts in many fields coming together to further a cause. Sharad Pawar, who holds a critical portfolio in the Union Cabinet, was the board president. Only recently, C.P. Joshi, Rural Development minister, defeated Lalit Modi in the Rajasthan Cricket Association elections. And here in Delhi, we have senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley heading the DDCA.

There was no way a man of Jaitley’s calibre would have involved himself in deciding what soil to use and where to procure the grass from. Typically, he would have paid top dollar and hired the best man for the job. What happened was that the men he trusted failed him. The choice before him is to replace these men with better individuals, which will work for a time. Or, put in place a system that doesn’t depend on individuals.

Unfortunately, that won’t make him popular with his fellow cricket administrators.