Why this recce mission to England

The cricket board president has seldom been touchy about media criticism of the board or Indian cricket. Jagmohan Dalmiya’s philosophy has always been to avoid controversy, even if his silence meant inviting more criticism. When he was the board secretary he once said that the board can’t afford to be transparent for fear of ruffling some feathers. Ever since he took over as the president there appears to be some welcome change in his attitude. Someone who has always believed in the spoken word, he has now started penning his thoughts.
Dalmiya has recently written to all the affiliated units of the board a four-page letter as to why he has chosen to send board joint secretary Jyoti Bajpai and his hand-picked director of communications and coordination, Amrit Mathur, to England on a recce mission to check security arrangements, hotel accommodation, travel and transport arrangements. He tried to answer some of the questions raised in this column a couple of weeks ago.
There is nothing wrong with board officials going to England, what passes understanding is why should the board chief be so apologetic about it. He says its not a tit-for-tat, but mentions that Australia, England and South Africa have always sent their officials with a checklist before a tour, whereas the Indian board didn’t do it because it considered it as a ‘‘wasteful expenditure.’’ Like all things in life, even the board, he says, has changed after the fall of the ‘‘twin towers’’ on September 11.
Dalmiya’s letter has all relevant points to justify sending the two gentlemen and, for good measure, he has explained why he chose the joint secretary and not the secretary. ‘‘It would (have) perhaps been logical for the honorary secretary to be part of the mission. But he is currently out of the country on a personal holiday and has a tremendous workload at home soon after his return.’’ The board even wanted an official of the home ministry to join the two-member team, but apparently it didn’t get a response.
Where was secretary Niranjan Shah vacationing? England! What’s the load of work on his return? Was he so busy with the selection of the India A team to Sri Lanka or in ensuring the selection of one particular player?
The media arrangements have to be made in the light of what happened during the World Cup. Imagine, the England and Wales Board is believed to have said that the board should appoint a media manager, failing which it would appoint one for the tour and debit the bill to the Indian board! So, the board will send a media manager, not because it feels it’s not a wasteful expenditure but because the ECB is threatening to appoint one. Guess who will be the media manager. You guessed it: not a professional but the board’s blue-eyed boy.
That brings us to an important issue on the media relations. Some players told the media in West Indies that the administrative manager has refused them permission for any interviews whereas the board’s communications director, who is supposed to be helping the media, is busy interviewing the captain and the vice-captain on a hotline from Delhi for a newspaper. This is something akin to players, past and present, doing business with the board when they are actively involved with it in other capacities.
The board is very much within its rights to refuse certain clauses incorporated in the Memorandum of Understanding as they are heavily loaded in in favour of the ECB and these, he rightly says, can’t be sorted out writing letters. The board’s objection to the ECB involving the Indian team and its captain in its promo packages with sponsors. Like it wants the team to be photographed with the sponsor’s logo in the backdrop and also wants the captain to be interviewed by the host broadcaster at the end of each day’s play.
The 18-page MOU has a lot of small things which the board tried to read in fine print and felt that things it didn’t ever demand from a visiting side were incorporated in it. The board is not aware of things the MOU has because it always treated its sponsors like dirt and made them feel that it was doing them a great favour by allowing them to pump money into Indian cricket.
Show one sponsor who is happy with the board’s way of functioning. Naturally, it finds the ECB treating its sponsors as gods strange. So much so, no-nonsense England skipper Nasser Hussain refused to attend a private dinner hosted by Indian team sponsors in Lucknow when the England team was here recently. Obviously, it was not part of the schedule agreed upon.
The Indian board doesn’t believe in professionalism. That’s the reason why the Indian administrative managers spend more time in business centres of hotels, sending across a spate of fax messages and receiving them because everything is done in an ad hoc manner. If they don’t call up the secretary or president every day then they are not doing their job ‘‘professionally.’’ At last, the board has realised the importance of an MOU and the trip to England of the two gentlemen is well worth it if they are wiser for it. The board chief has asked his constituents for a feedback on the exercise. Needless to say that storm troopers will hail the chief in chorus.