The BCCI's National Shame

"We do not have fast bowlers in India." a young man, and aspiring fast bowler, at a cricket camp was apparently told when he complained about the quantity and quality of the food being served to him and his fellow fast bowlers at the camp.

The name of the dismissive panjandrum is not worth recalling – for it is people like that who make one marvel that India produces world class cricketers nonetheless.

As for the young wannabe fast bowler, he would go on to indeed become India's first genuine fast bowler, one of the greatest all-rounders in the sport, and, until last year, the only man to lead India to a World Cup win.

Kapil Dev's contributions to Indian cricket made him one of India's greatest players.  Along with the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev did more than just represent India with distinction - their efforts helped change what it meant to be a cricketer in India.  It would be reasonable to contend that the golden years of Indian cricket - as represented by Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Kumble - were inspired, in part, by the achievements of these men. And even if the latter did go on to make being a cricketer by far the most remunerative professional sporting option in India alongside golf and tennis, the change from the days when cricketers were notoriously poorly paid owes much to the feats of Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar, and the generation of players they led.

Kapil Dev represented a new approach to Indian cricket – if the initial days of Indian cricket characterised teams which struggled to win, or even draw, they were then replaced by the MAK Pataudi/ Ajit Wadekar years when Indian cricket began to win, and not just at home, but away as well, when they overcame giants of the sport like West Indies and England. They, in turn, made way for the years when India was led by Bishen Singh Bedi, S Venkataraghavan and eventually Gavaskar – the emphasis on Test match wins remained, but as Gavaskar’s captaincy record shows, the tendency to win a Test and then try to draw the rest of them to win the series dominated India’s approach.

However, India under Kapil Dev, a younger captain with a bolder approach, were more positive in their outlook. Not only did they strive to win more consistently, but they also looked to build upon their successes rather than revert to the more traditional conservative approach. The story goes that in his first series to Pakistan, Kapil Dev, still a young, fiery fast bowler, had no qualms bouncing the strong Pakistani batting line up – represented by some of the biggest batting names of those years – Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Asif Iqbal, and, of course, Imran Khan.  That story was typically Kapil Dev, at least to the normal Indian fan, whose experience of Test cricket, more than three decades back, was limited to crowding around little transistor sets and trying to imagine the scene that All India Radio’s commentators so vividly described. Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and others like GR Vishwanath and Mohinder Amarnath were heroes of those pieces, among the handful of truly world class cricketers India then had.

And yet, while India began to belong in international cricket they arrived at the 1983 World Cup anything but favourites. The West Indies were still looking unstoppable, Australia continued to be serious contenders, and Pakistan, who had adapted and understood one-day cricket better than India, were expected to post a challenge. India, though, were not expected to be a major threat, with bookmakers offering generous odds on India winning the title. India started reasonably, beating the defending champions in their opening game, but losses to Australia and the West Indies made their second match against Zimbabwe a must-win game.

However, at 17/5 batting first, yet another loss to a non-Test playing nation loomed, as did exit from the tournament. Kapil Dev, though had different ideas, producing an unbeaten 175, one of India's most memorable one-day knocks and perhaps fittingly, the first ever ODI century by an Indian.  India did enough to win that game, the tide turned, and Kapil Dev led India to a famous World Cup win, but not before he took a fabulous running catch to dismiss a rampaging Viv Richards in the finals at Lord’s. The knock against Zimbabwe and that Richards catch were testimony not just to Kapil Dev as a cricketer, but as an all-rounder to rank among the best that world cricket has seen, and as an athlete, a description which has rarely been applied to India’s cricketers - before Kapil Dev and after as well.

Between that World Cup win, the 434 wickets he took in his career, the 5000+ runs he scored in Tests, and his tremendous commitment to Indian cricket, Kapil Dev earned himself a place in Indian cricket which is as invaluable as it is indisputable.

So how is it that such a fine cricketer, and a man whose success as a world cup winning captain took nearly three decades to be emulated by those that followed him to that role, is not in the BCCI’s list of past cricketers receiving the board’s recent, well meant, financial recognition package that has been delivered to so many of India’s past cricketers?

Rajiv Shukla, IPL Chairman, is on record as having said that Kapil Dev is indeed eligible for the award – what stands in the way of his being able to receive it is the that he has not yet accepted the BCCI’s “amnesty” offer for being associated with the now-defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL).

The stand of the BCCI on this particular issue is untenable on two counts.

One, by treating Kapil Dev’s association with the ICL as an offence for which he needs to accept an offer of “amnesty”, the BCCI is effectively declaring that its own commercial considerations trump any of several cricketing merits of one of India’s greatest cricketers.

And two, by declaring that Kapil Dev would still be eligible for the reward if he were to accept the “amnesty” offer, the BCCI is, effectively, offering to bribe Kapil Dev back into the fold. Irrespective of how remunerative cricket as a career was for Kapil Dev, this bribery is shameful. That it is so blatant only makes it that much more unpalatable.

That Kapil Dev is being denied what he so richly deserves is ironical - India's success at the 1983 World Cup signalled the start of Indian cricket's commercial transformation - which has in turn made the BCCI both rich and powerful.  The need for "amnesty" due to his association with the ICL is even more ironical – the ICL was, after all, the template from which the IPL, the BCCI’s show case event, evolved.  

Whether the BCCI has the courage to set aside its politics and recognise one of India’s finest cricketers, will demonstrate if it truly values the interests of Indian cricket, and how seriously it takes its role as the organisation which has seen Indian cricket from Lala Amarnath to MS Dhoni.

It would not be exaggeration to suggest that the BCCI is the custodian of cricket’s interests in India – and in that sense, it needs to be a more mature organisation than one which is acting as it is.

The current office bearers of the BCCI are just that – they do not represent the past of the BCCI or Indian cricket, nor do they represent its future. Furthermore, Indian cricket is, and will always be, about those who don the India colours and represent the country on the cricket field – the BCCI and its office bearers are not the ones winning India accolades on the cricket pitch. And if indeed the BCCI is serious about honouring and rewarding those that have done so, it should do so without favour, and without letting a commercial grudge override the very contributions it ostensibly seeks to recognise.

India has a history of sports bodies letting down those they are supposed to be nurturing – Indian hockey’s decline, the sorry state of Indian athletics, the national shame that was the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee are excellent case studies that best illustrate this tendency.

But for the BCCI to be able to avoid going the same way, and to assure cricketers that it does genuinely care for them, Kapil Dev needs to be feted and celebrated for his contributions to Indian cricket – anything else would convey the message to all cricketers that they either toe the official line, or risk being treated as pariahs.

Anything else – and that includes statements from the likes of Rajiv Shukla – will be a national shame.