Rediff On The NeT: Lele, right about turn


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August 22, 1998

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Lele, right about turn

By Prem Panicker

In a complete climbdown from its earlier hardline stance, the BCCI today said in Calcutta that it would send its entry for the Commonwealth Games through the Indian Olympic Association.

Board secretary J Y Lele, who for about a week now has been talking tough, did a volte face and informed the media in Calcutta that he had received a directive from the International Cricket Council. As per the directive, said Lele, it was decided not to send the entry through the ICC.

The Indian team will now be forwarded by the IOA.

Further, the Indian team will take part in the march past, under the IOA flag, and not the BCCI flag.

Further, the Indian cricketers will stay at the Games village, and not in any seperate accomodation or hotel, as the BCCI planned earlier.

Further, the Indian cricketers will not wear the Wills logo, as Lele had insisted earlier. The only logo will be that of the official sponsors of the Games.

So what's left? More importantly, what was all the chaos, the confusion, the profusion of faxes and statements and media conferences, all about?

It was, in a word, a bit to obfuscate. To blow smoke, to confuse the issues, to force the IOA to acknowledge the autonomy of the BCCI in all matters cricketing.

It was all so needless -- after all, no one disputes that in matters relating to cricket in India, the BCCI is autonomous. However, the international norms with regard to multi-discipline sporting contests have been accepted for decades, and it clearly specifies that teams can only be sent under the aegis of the national Olympic associations.

The BCCI had nothing to lose by submitting to that norm. After all, to use just one example, the Brazilian football association sends the team for the World Cup but when it comes to say the Olympics, it is the Brazilian Olympic association under whose aegis the team is fielded.

Little men with little minds -- the kind running Indian cricket today -- do not understand these things, apparently.

Now that all that frantic phone-calling and faxing has convinced Lele that the Games committee will not accept any entry that does not have the imprimatur of the IOA, comes the complete flip-flop.

But what now?

In case it has slipped the memory, the original contention of the IOA was that it would accept nothing less than a full strength team for the Games.

It was in a bid to avoid this, to send a second string to Kuala Lumpur and the first team to Toronto for the Sahara Cup, that Lele and company first blew all that smoke -- about cricketers not taking the dope test, about the Wills logo, about the cricketers only playing under the BCCI flag and not that of the IOA, and all the rest of it.

The complete capitulation, on all points, now puts us back in square one. And the question remains: what team will the BCCI send to Kuala Lumpur?

"Equal weightage will be given to both tournaments when selecting the teams," is Lele's response. "Both teams will be well balanced."

Now this, will be worth seeing -- come September four, the national selectors will attempt to balance the Ganguly-Tendulkar opening partnership with... who, exactly? Or the Srinath-Agarkar opening bowling pair with... what?

The coming days should see a reduction in the noise levels, as the IOA and the BCCI ease off on their war of words. But this respite will be merely temporary -- what's the betting that minutes after the teams are announced on September 4, there will be flat out war between the two bodies?

Mail Prem Panicker