da spicy bet： The formation of a cricketers association in India is not a new move.In the seventies, the leading players, then, formed an association andSunil Gavaskar, Bishen Bedi and S Venkatraghavan were the prominentoffice bearers
da betobet： Partab Ramchand02-Nov-2002The formation of the Indian Cricket Players Association (ICPA) wasalways on the cards following the recent stand off between leadingplayers and the Board of Control for Cricket in India over thecontentious sponsorship issue. Indeed, there has been talk of such aplayers’ body for some time now and the latest controversy onlyhastened the formation of the association.
The formation of a cricketers association in India is not a new move.In the seventies, the leading players, then, formed an association andSunil Gavaskar, Bishen Bedi and S Venkatraghavan were the prominentoffice bearers. Little, however, was heard of the body thereafter andit is doubtful if anything constructive was done. Over the years itbecame largely inactive and virtually non-existent.
Traditionally, there has always been more than just a generation gapbetween players and administrators and this is even more pronouncedas far as Indian cricket is concerned. The cricketers have generallyfelt that administrators live in ivory towers, distancing themselvesfrom the cricketers and not being aware of changing trends in the gameor at least being indifferent to them. The officials, for their part,have generally held the view that players are spoilt, ill-behavedbrats, too big for their boots and so very often have refused to doanything with them.Of late, there have been welcome attempts at bridging this gap withthe International Cricket Council taking some steps in this direction.Some of their schemes – taking the views of cricketers on variousissues, appointing more former players on committees – have been takenin a bid to achieve this objective. But much more needs to be done tobridge the gap if the results of a players’ survey conducted by theFederation of International Cricketers (FICA) are to be believed.According to the results, only 20% of the players polled believe theICC is doing a good job running cricket, as opposed to 46% who thinkthey aren’t. While only four per cent agreed with the notion that theICC balanced the interests of the game with those of the players, atotal of 60% disagreed with that view. And 62 per cent did not thinkthat the ICC was interested in the views of the players.If such a survey were taken in India, the results would undoubtedlyunderline the yawning gap that exists in the relationship betweenplayers and officials. Cricketers were more inclined to support theirgoverning bodies in their own countries. In the FICA survey, 56 percent of the players agreed that they had a good relationship withtheir home board while 41% agreed their officials had the bestinterests of the game at heart. Indian players obviously did not fallunder the purview of the survey and there is little doubt that thefigure of cricketers agreeing that they enjoyed a good relationshipwith the BCCI would not be anywhere as high as 56 per cent.The formation of a cricketers association in India is not a new move.In the seventies, the leading players then formed an association andSunil Gavaskar, Bishen Bedi and S Venkatraghavan were the prominentoffice bearers. Little, however, was heard of the body thereafter andit is doubtful if anything constructive was done. Over the years itbecame largely inactive and virtually non-existent.Then in 1989, in the wake of the court case involving the BCCI and theleading cricketers after the players went off to play some unofficialexhibition matches in the USA following the tour of the West Indies,there were fresh moves to give the players association a kick start.But once the crisis was resolved, the Association of IndianCricketers, as it was called, became defunct.The body formed on Tuesday, however, promises to be more active and itseems to have certain definite plans and objectives.For starters, membership would be open to all present and past firstclass cricketers, according to former Indian opening batsman Arun Lalwho is the secretary, and that means it will have a large base.Secondly, the situation now is very different than it was about 25years ago when the first association was formed. The problems thesedays are manifold and complicated and the cricketers obviously feelthat a players’ body would help in solving the complex issues.Moreover, with former Indian captain MAK Pataudi as president and withstar players like Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid andAnil Kumble as its founding members, things could be worked outsmoothly, even at the top level.The ICPA may have to get into action sooner than expected. It must notbe forgotten that the contracts issue has still to be solved. Ahastily conceived ad hoc arrangement was arrived at just prior to thecommencement of the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka in September.The contentious issue is still pending and requires a long-termsolution before the start of the World Cup in South Africa inFebruary.It must be remembered that the BCCI was even ready to send a secondstring team to Sri Lanka if the leading players did not sign thecontract. The BCCI, given its feudal set up, has not taken kindly toplayer power over the years and it remains to be seen what JagmohanDalmiya’s reaction will be to the new association. The BCCI hasmaintained that it would give its approval to a cricketers’association only if all domestic first-class players were its members.And both Pataudi and Arun Lal have done well in making it clear thatwhile raising problems faced by players with the board, theassociation would not be looking for any confrontation.”We are looking for a wider acceptance for the association. The ICPAwill be non-confrontational. We are for dialogue with the BCCI onissues relating to players and will act only in the interests of thecricketers and the game,” Arun Lal is quoted to have said whilePataudi has harped upon the need for such a body to help open acommunication channel with the board for better working of the twoorganizations.The ICPA has ambitious long-term plans like involving players inraising funds for charities, float a pension fund and an insurancescheme for players and the widows of cricketers and organise benefitmatches for them. There are also plans to have a charity dinner toraise funds for the association. In the meantime, their primaryobjectives should be to gain recognition or at least approval from theBCCI and to find a permanent solution to the contracts issue. If theycan achieve this, it would be a good beginning for the new body and asthe cliché goes, well begun is half done.
