The Cricket Interview/J Y Lele
"If the players play masala matches, why blame the Board?"
J Y Lele has been honorary secretary of the Baroda Cricket Association for 27 years now. And presumably knows as much about cricket administration as anyone else in the business.
And yet, his brief tenure as first acting secretary and, following his election to the post in course of the BCCI AGM at Madras on November 6, as full-fledged secretary of the BCCI, has been full of controversy. The last of which occured as recently as Monday, when he first invited mediapersons for a briefing in Delhi, named a time, and when the media landed up, they found to their collective disgust that he had checked out of his hotel room three hours earlier.
The 59-year-old Lele holds a diploma in mechanical and electrical engineering, and he began his professional career as an engineer. When he retired from active employment, it was as chief public relations manager of a Baroda-based firm. On the field, Lele was reputed as a decent opening batsman and leg-spinner, and the rating was that he could, given the breaks, have played for Baroda. In the event, he didn't.
We caught up with the newly elected secretary of the BCCI in the Indian team's dressing room, during the Anshuman Gaikwad benefit match in Baroda, between a scratch India XI and the visiting Sri Lankans, on November 13. Excerpts, from a free-wheeling conversation with Haresh Pandya:
As the new secretary of the BCCI, what items figure at the top of your agenda?
The obvious priority is to take Indian cricket to the top. In more concrete terms, we are doing our utmost to re-start India-Pakistan tours, both home and away, on a regular basis. We have been having a dialogue with their cricket officials, and they too are as eager as we are. Hopefully, within
a year or two, we would have resumed cricket tours between the two countries. We are most keen on a Test series, and hope to begin with a five-Test series to start with.
Talking of taking Indian cricket to the top, both you and Board president Raj Singh Dungarpur have been talking about appointing a physical trainer, for a year now. Other than press statements, have you taken any steps in this regard?
Well, we are now in a position to appoint one. Bobby Simpson is coming to India as match referee for the India-Sri Lanka series, and he has recommended a couple of names, he said that when he comes to India, he will brief us about both candidates. We would like to know how good they are, where they come from, what terms and conditions they will expect, and so on. Once we hear from Simpson, we will straightaway appoint one.
Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad recently went to the MRF Pace Foundation, under sponsorship of that company, to improve their skills. The BCCI, being the most cash-rich cricketing body in the world, does not however appear to believe in sending promising cricketers for such advanced training. Why is that?
We have not received any feedback from Srinath or Prasad about their experience at the academy, about whether it suited them, whether they really learnt something useful, things like that. Unless and until there is some interaction between these players and us, how can we evaluate the pluses and minuses of sending our cricketers for such training?
In that case, why doesn't India start its own cricket academy?
We are in the process of starting our own cricket academy, actually. The BCCI has already asked Sunil Gavaskar to work out plans for the academy, and he too is very keen about the whole thing. Hopefully, we should be able to start out our own cricket academy by next summer.
What is the logic behind appointing Ravindra Chadha as team physio? How were his qualifications assessed?
Well, somebody had to be appointed, and Mr Chadha is a qualified physio, we hope he will prove the right man for the job.
No sooner did the BCCI appoint Chadha, than Manoj Prabhakar remarked that he is only a general practitioner...
Prabhakar perhaps does not know that Mr Chadha, besides being a doctor, has undergone the complete training required for a physio, he has taken a diploma in physiotherapy, so he has all the qualifications he needs for this post. As far as his tenure is concerned, it is until September 1998, at which point we will review the situation.
How about the Under-19 team, has the BCCI appointed any physio for them?
We have decided to send a physio with the team, but we haven't appointed anyone thus far.
Wives-on-tour is a big, and recurring, bone of contention between the Board and the players. What are the Board's policies on this issue?
We are very clear that a player has first to seek the Board's permission for taking his wife on a foreign tour, when he is a member of the Indian team. Such requests are evaluated by the Board president, after which we grant the permission.
And girlfriends?
No, the Board does not consider girlfriends, only wives.
The BCCI's much-hyped plan to improve pitches has proved a non-starter. Why?
The Board is serious about improving the condition of Indian pitches. Unfortunately,
the foreign experts who visited Indian Test centres a few months ago were free to do so only in July 1997. By then it was too late, as new pitches can be laid only in April-May, when there are natural rains. Sprinkling water does not help. So whatever we want to do, we have to do before May. Now, we are in the midst of a season, the pitches are all in use, so there is no way we can do anything about the pitches just now, we have to wait till the season is over. We will begin work, however, within the next couple of months.
And what are the kind of pitches being planned?
Sporting wickets. For instance, for a Test, pitches should help fast bowlers on the first day, medium pace through the first three days, and should gradually wear so that on the last couple of days, spinners too should get help. Every pitch should be like that, pitches should wear down gradually in course of play. Today, we either have very good wickets or very bad ones -- on some of our wickets, you can play for ten days without getting a result and on some others, the ball begins to turn on day one. All this has to be changed, pitches have to be more sporting.
The BCCI has appointed Anshuman Gaikwad as coach for a term of just one year. Isn't that too short a term?
That is a policy matter, he could be persisted with at the end of that time, it depends on how the team fares under him. Look, I am the secretary, Mr Dungarpur is the president, but our term is only for one year, every year there is fresh elections. Suppose I lose next year,
a new man will come in my place. It is not like our tenure is guaranteed, it all depends on how we perform. Thus, if Gaikwad performs, he will be retained. Tenure, we believe, should depend on performance.
In Australia, there is talk of players going on strike, asking for bigger pay. How about the BCCI, is there any plan to increase players' fees?
No. At least, not at the moment.
What will the BCCI's approach be to the Justice Chandrachud report?
The decision taken in course of the BCCI AGM was that once the Chandrachud report is submitted (Ed's note: The report was in fact submitted to the Board on Monday, November 16) it will be tabled before our
working committee. The next step will be decided after the committee considers the report in full.
Will the report be made public?
Why not? We have nothing to hide from anybody. Whatever Justice Chandrachud says in his report will be made available for the media, and through them to the public.
Media reports indicate that the BCCI is contemplating a suit against Manoj Prabhakar?
Whatever has appeared in the media in this respect is totally baseless, we have not thought about any such thing.
Of late, there has been lots of infighting within the BCCI itself, is this a good thing for Indian cricket?
What infighting? Mr Inderjit Singh Bindra
is not happy because Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya has become the ICC president.
It is as simple as that. It is nothing but sheer envy, personal envy. What else can it be? They were two of the best friends, nothing else was wrong between them, just this thing of Mr Dalmiya becoming ICC president.
But doesn't this kind of thing give Indian cricket a bad name?
It does. But then, who is to be blamed? I don't want to say anything, in so many words, but the facts are there for anyone to see. What we had recently was one man mud-slinging, constantly, at another while his target stayed silent through it all. So who is guilty? When you say something, you should be in a position to substantiate it. Mr Sunil
Dev for instance is saying all sorts of things though, in reality, it is not Mr Dev but Mr Bindra who is actually doing the talking. But none of what has been said is being substantiated. Mr Bindra forgets that every decision is on record, and that he cannot make baseless allegations. Mr Dalmiya is a rich person, his company does business of Rs 80-odd million a year, he doesn't need money from the BCCI. All that stuff that was spoken, it is merely one person's imagination, his attempt to malign Mr Dalmiya.
Mr Dalmiya is ICC president, what is the logic in giving him a role to play in the BCCI?
We have only made him a patron, that kind of thing happens everywhere. Even the MCC nominates honorary members. For instance, if I serve out my full five year tenure and attend ICC meetings every year, I too might be given an honorary membership of the ICC, it has nothing to do with undue influence or whatever. You get nothing for being an honorary member, either of the BCCI or the ICC or whatever. What does Mr Dalmiya get for being a patron? Tickets for matches? He can get that anyway. Like, for being honorary member of the ICC I might get a ticket to the Lord's Test -- but to watch it, I will have to spend Rs 50,000 or more from my pocket to fly down there, so even that little perk is useless to me.
P R Man Singh, of the Hyderabad Cricket Association, says that some selectors have demanded money from players to ensure their selection. Your comments?
Absolute nonsense. Completely false. See, he is
trying to settle his personal scores. In fact, he has been maligning everybody -- Ranga Reddy, Shivlal Yadav... he is in fact on the verge of being ousted from the HCA.
The BCCI seems to blunder even in the appointment of umpires. For instance, the Titan Cup last year, 20 umpires were used, even match referee John Reid was not happy...
Who says so? If John Reid was not happy, he should have given a report stating that. But not one single report has been received, from Reid or from any of the visiting captains. We have got 100 umpires, or more,there are 45 of them on the all-India panel alone, so why should just a couple of umpires monopolise all matches?
Of course, we are very careful about Tests, we give those games only to umpires from the Test panel. But there is nothing
wrong in using the services of other umpires in one-day internationals, how else will they get experience? And it is after watching these umpires that we can select the really good ones for the Test panel. So what was the harm in our selecting all those umpires for the panel?
You are on record as saying the BCCI wants relations between players and the media to be good...
(Interrupting) Yes, we want very cordial relations to exist between the two parties.
Then why does the Board ban players from talking to mediapersons?
Why should they talk to the media? I think they shouldn't, unless of course they are discussing their personal lives, to which we have no objection. But if say Mr Ajay Jadeja is in the Indian team, he has no business discussing say the decisions taken by his captain Mr Sachin Tendulkar, or discussing whether Mr Azharuddin is a good batsman or a bad batsman, things like that. Players should play, and not get into such controversies -- and that is why we ban them from talking to the media.
The general feeling is that the BCCI is scheduling too many cricket matches, making money at the expense of the players' health... Even some players have been complaining about this, what are your views?
Which player complained? You tell me. If players are complaining about too much cricket, then they should first stop participating in masala matches. If they are so tired, why do they play all those games, in the hot sun, after the season is over, instead of resting? As far as our scheduling is concerned, we are going as per the ICC guidelines, which says the ideal is 12 Tests and 30 one day internationals in a year. As far as the official schedules go, we will stick to that. If the players play masala matches when they should be resting, why blame the Board?
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