A blurred vision

Subhajit Dey

After going through the much publicised ‘Vision 2000’ statement of the BCCI, I immediately flipped through the dictionary pages to find the appropriate meaning of the word ‘Vision’ and I found that it means ‘imaginative insight’; ‘foresight’; ‘good judgment in planning’. But what I read as the ‘Vision’ of BCCI is nothing of that sort. This document, which everyone was so eagerly waiting for and which was produced before none other than the Sports Minister, can very easily be termed as the work of an amateur that the BCCI hired for the job. If you read even a part of this document, you will realise that even an eight grader can do a better job.

I have my doubts whether the honorable (or honorary?) BCCI president has even read the document. It’s a complete waste of time to discuss the whole document in detail. So I will just touch upon a few points.

1. This is taken from the very first section ‘Cricket – a Global Game’ and it says: BCCI is helping to make cricket even more global.

Note: Folks, yes……this is the very first section of BCCI’s Vision statement. Is cricket going to be more global than what Dalmiya has already done? Haven’t we all witnessed the adverse effect of this so-called ‘Globalization’? Under the current state of Indian cricket, is ‘Globalization’ the topmost priority?

Another statement from the same section says: Cricket is played in 56 countries across six of the world's seven continents.

Note: By the time BCCI has finished writing this document, this number probably would have gone up to 57 or 58 !! Didn’t we recently hear the news that cricket would now be promoted in Afghanistan? Where next?

May be Somalia?

2. Then comes the ‘Introduction’ section, which says: BCCI, as the game's administrator, is fully aware of the passion cricket supporters hold for the great game and the interest they have evinced in cricket issues.

Note: It is indeed nice to know that BCCI is aware of the passion of cricket supporters. But are they also aware of the decline in this passion? Isn’t the recent Asia Cup at Dhaka and various polls an indication of the steady decline? Or does BCCI take it for granted that no matter what, this passion will always be there. In that case, the BCCI is sadly mistaken.

3. Under the section ‘Objectives of BCCI’, two statements are worth mentioning:

a. To promote the game in India to ensure outstanding success in the international arena.

Note: I didn't know that just promoting the game will ensure outstanding success in the international arena !!!. I'll send my personal request to every politician in country that they should promote the game of cricket in their constituency. Thus we can ensure international success. Watch out Aussies, here we come.

In terms of promotion, hasn’t cricket already been promoted so much that it has sidelined all other sports in the country? But have we witnessed even any ‘moderate success’ (leave alone ‘outstanding’) in recent time? Contrary to this, our performance has reached rock bottom !!.

b. To enhance the entertainment values of the game through innovative measures.

Note: I see. Till now, we only know about discreet match-fixing. May be to enhance the entertainment value, we can make it something like the WWF or may be some kind of a circus !! After all these match-fixing controversies which has reduced this game to something like a ‘staged drama’, don’t we need some REAL and SERIOUS cricket now? I don’t think any fan will complain about lack of entertainment. We need to see some serious business now.

4. Let us focus on the ‘Decision making process’ section and one of the statements here says: Decision making process - a truly democratic way.

Note: Is this the real case? As I see it, it is still Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya who is calling the shots in the BCCI. In his official capacity, Mr. Dalmiya is the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). So what was he doing in the delegation that met the Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa on August 1st? No other State Association president was present there. Not only that, Mr. Dalmiya is also attending other meetings like the one to prepare the Code of Conduct. If we all, including Mr. Dhindsa, can ask for the exclusion of Kapil, Azhar and Jadeja from the team, on similar grounds, shouldn’t Mr. Dalmiya too be banned from the BCCI till his name is cleared?

5. The ‘Aim’ section has seven points, most of which states just facts. There is also a one line statement that says something like ‘Aim to achieve No.2 position immediately and No.1 soon thereafter.’

Read the first statement in this section which says: Indian team recently won second under-19 World Cup and Asian cricket annual under 15 tournament. It won World Cup -1983. It entered semi-finals in World Cup - 1987. It did extremely well in World Cup 1996 and in Super Six - World Cup 1999.

Note: The record book says that India entered the semi-finals of the 1996 World Cup too when we lost to Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens, Calcutta. So shouldn’t this be put along with the 1987 performance? Instead, it says that we did extremely well in 1996 and 1999 !! Can our performance in the 1999 World Cup be termed as something like ‘extremely well’?

6. The section ‘Providing direction’ has some interesting points, couple of them are:

a. To allow Indian cricket players to perform both on and off the field.

Note: To ‘perform OFF the field’? Am I missing something here? If some of the players have performed only ON the field and not OFF the field, then we would never seen these dark days of cricket !! Hello? No more ‘OFF’ the field performance for Indian cricket players.

b. To ensure that more people benefit from out great game, whether they are playing it or watching it.

Note: But so far, the biggest beneficiary has been the BCCI. Isn’t it? Remember the Rs. 98 crores Fixed Deposit certificates found at Mr. Rungta’s place which according to the BCCI president belong to the board?

As far as the people are concerned, aren’t we just suffering?

7. I’ll take just two statements from the ‘Future Goals’ section, and they are:

a. To ensure that India remains the top 3 team of the world in the next 5 years.

Note: This is in what form of cricket – Tests or ODIs? BCCI has different ‘Aims for the two versions of the game The ‘Aim’ section earlier states that in Tests, our ‘Aim is to achieve No.2 position immediately and No.1soon thereafter.’ And for the ODIs, our ‘Aim is to achieve No.3 position immediately and No.2 soon thereafter'. So, suppose India maintains the No. 3 position consistently for the next 5 years, then it fulfills one of the ‘Future goals’, but doesn’t it fail to fulfill the ‘Aim’ ? Doesn’t that sound contradictory?

b. To prepare a team capable of winning World Cup 2002. To make nationals level tournaments more potent, attractive and competitive.

Note: Excuse me !! This mention of '2002 World Cup' is there at a couple of places in the Vision statement and I did check the statement at different web sites just to make sure that it does say ‘2002’ everywhere and it does!! As far as I know, and I double checked this at various web sites too (including the South Africa official web site) that the next World Cup is in the year 2003 !!!!! So in a nutshell, BCCI is preparing for the next World Cup, but they don’t seem to know which year it actually is !!!

8. Under the section ‘For state associations’, one of the points says:

Each state association will create at least one ground of international standards with complete fitness facilities.

Note: When the BCCI talks about ‘each state association’, it includes cricket associations in states such as Tripura, J&K, Himachal Pradesh too. Considering the cricket standard and the revenue generated from cricket in these states, is it reasonable for the BCCI to expect these state associations to create a ground of international standard? Instead, the BCCI should have talked about the measures taken to help these states to improve their cricket skills, to narrow the gap between these under-privileged states and the privileged ones like Karnataka, Bengal etc. BCCI should have talked about improving the domestic structure of cricket in our country. Once the performance level goes up, the revenue will start generating and for their own sake, these associations will make better stadiums and better grounds. Otherwise, the BCCI has to help them out to create a ground of international standard. The question is how many such associations can the BCCI help out?

Folks, these are only a few points that I decided to discuss with you. I can go on and on, but probably by now, you have got a pretty good idea about this document called ‘Vision 2000’. So if you haven’t read it, then I’ll suggest please don’t waste your valuable time reading it. Assuming that the CBI, IT department and the Govt. will be able to remove this cancer called ‘match-fixing’ from Indian cricket in the near future (a BIG assumption indeed, isn’t it?), but still the bottom line is the performance on the field. With a governing body like the BCCI at the helm of our cricket affairs, who has produced this Vision statement, how can we be still optimistic about the future of Indian cricket?

Mail Subhajit Dey