Bombay Gym deprived of
date with history

The event was to be the feature of the 125-year celebrations of the Bombay Gymkhana, the venue of the first ever Test in India, between India and England, 68 years ago. The English cricket team, currently touring India, was to play against the Bombay Gymkhana XI, to kick-off a week-long 'Cricket Carnival' at the club.

But that piece of history wasn't to be. The proposed match was cancelled; the 'Cricket Carnival', which was postponed by a week, was scrapped!

The English team, which was supposed to land in Bombay for the one-day series, starting January 19, instead alighted at Kolkata after the Board of Control for Cricket in India revised the one-day itinerary, adding a sixth one-dayer to the second phase of the English tour.

Former BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur, who had suggested that the gymkhana be alloted the match when A C Muthiah was the board president, has reportedly blamed current board president Jagmohan Dalmiya for the cancellation of the match.

Bombay Gymkhana secretary Rajesh Khanna said even ECB chief executive Tim Lamb had confirmed England's participation for the match, which would commemorate the inaugural Test in 1934, between C K Nayudu's and Douglas Jardine's men.

Following is a paragraph from Lamb's letter to Bombay Gymkhana president Ashok Kapur, dated September 18, 2001: "As you may have seen from the published itinerary, England are scheduled to play their first warm-up match at the start of their One-day international series tour to India in Mumbai on Tuesday, 17th January 2002. I have suggested to Jaywant Lele that this should be the match to commemorate the inaugural England vs India Test match in 1934, although I was originally under the impression that the game would be staged at the CCI. We would be very happy to play against a Bombay Gymkhana international XI at the Bombay Gymkhana on January 17."

The gymkhana secretary calls the cancellation "humiliating".

"With the BCCI elections and the victory of Jagmohan Dalmiya as the president of the Indian board, we have been deprived of the match we deserved to host. Bombay Gymkhana can afford the monetary losses involved but the way the Indian board has dealt with India's maiden Test venue is humiliating," he said.

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, however, defends the board's decision, saying, "It was their (English) team management that insisted on landing in Kolkata. They wanted to land in the city where the first match was taking place. They want everything on their own terms; they don't want to travel.

"Let them talk; what difference would it have made if they were to land in Mumbai and then travelled to Kolkata. They are just whining away," he said.

Whatever, but it seems that the board is not only at loggerheads with its English counterpart but also with its own associations.

Mumbai Cricket Association's vice-president Praveen Barve too is not happy with cancellation of the match.

"Sometimes when you go deeper into why the board is being unjust to Bombay cricket, it stinks bad," he said..

"Everything has changed after the board elections last year. With new leadership at the top, things have changed."

The Mumbai Cricket Association had refused to pledge its support to the Dalmiya camp during the BCCI elections last September and that seems the more palpable reason for the treatment being meted out to Mumbai cricket.

"The timing of the Challenger Trophy is very strange. The South Zone tournament was starting in the first week of January and the West Zone matches were in progress. What was the urgency in holding the tournament so soon? Mumbai is the champion side from the West Zone and it is leagues ahead of the others, yet there are hardly any players from the team. What is wrong with Abhijeet Kale, Robin Morris or Wasim Jaffer?" argued Barve.

Though Bombay hosts the sixth one-dayer, it seems that a single vote against the board's premiership is the reason for the deep ridge that now exists between the BCCI and Mumbai cricket.