Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
The BCCI soap opera is like a perpetually bloating bubble, it keeps expanding at an exponential rate, providing us with comic relief at intermittent intervals.
Thankfully, Vice President Lalit Modi of the joker body of administrators has not requested the Information and Broadcasting Ministry of India to levy a special fee for providing undiluted entertainment to millions of amused viewers of their spectacle on their idiot boxes every night. Continue reading below
He should try. The government might actually relent. And we will probably pay.
Poor Dilip Vengsarkar ! In one simple word, the BCCI has treated him like ----------- well, forget it. We guys grew up watching the classy Colonel hit exquisite cover drives, his natural penchant for stroke-making as obvious as his bushy moustache. His portrait adorns the walls of the haloed Lord's Pavilion in London, and he remains the low-profile constituent of the 1983 world champs, Kapil's Devils.
Evidently, the power-soaked, money-obsessed, petty-minded ignoramuses who run the joker body care a fig for Vengsarkar's career record. Or reputation.
It is a tragic scenario when Vengsarkar is finally reduced to comparing his income sources with that of his more fortunate contemporaries who wear smart suits and crack dry jokes with big grins from exotic destinations.
Honestly, I feel bad for him. Dilip has never had any false pretensions about his communication skills or public oratory. I think he is fully aware of his verbal transmission limitations.
Which is one of the reasons why I have been extremely baffled at his sudden turnaround, and the unending diarrhea that has often followed from him in front of lightning cameras and the serene silence of a studio set-up since he took over the Chief Selector's job.
He has therefore become a favorite target for sound bytes as he predictably goofs up, frequently creating a holocaust of epic proportions. His TV interview where he disclosed former captain Rahul Dravid's soft spot for Virendra Sehwag is a case in point. I am sure that these tactless disclosures of private conversations soured the relationship between the Chief Selector and the then skipper.
The subsequent fall-out between them hardly came as a surprise. It has been downhill since. Dilip's unwarranted castigations of the senior players recently effectively alienated him from the players as well.
In short, he has chosen to become a crushed cucumber in a sandwich. But that is another infantile kindergarten story by itself.
Dilip knows he cannot be a flashy TV commentator, but at least he deserves the full right to be a newspaper columnist. How can the BCCI unilaterally prevent him from airing his views, and earning sponsorship income? Sure, they can lay down a clear code of conduct and set-up strict conditions which can automatically safeguard against needless controversies.
But to deprive the former captain his commercial dues is totally unacceptable. It is prodigiously preposterous. It is draconian. Why are the senior players prohibited from media partnerships as well? The BCCI is extremely fortunate that the Players Association in India is a defunct dead body.
I believe the BCCI is getting away with blue murder, day in and day out, because they apprehend no visible threat. No opposition. Nothing. And they care a damn for public opinion.
It was the BCCI President himself who personally (no Working Committee meeting was held, if I remember correctly) authorized Vengsarkar to join the Indian team post the damaging drubbing we had received in the ODI series in South Africa last year.
Besides issuing dictatorial guidelines (can't these old men sit together and formulate working principles after mutual consultations?????), the BCCI has been typically arrogant in openly chiding Vengsarkar, and issuing diktats on small stuff such as whether to watch matches et al. It's so shallow, so immature, so very pathetic.
If this is the way the BCCI treats a former great and a Chief Selector chosen by them, one can well construe the mental make-up of the self-centered stuffed bags who brag big and run India's most popular game.
I say hats off to Anil Kumble and his boys for playing on with complete focus despite the juvenile misdemeanors and boisterous buffoonery of their bosses.
I know Dilip has swallowed his humble pride and traveled to the Garden city to select the team for the Australian tour. It is a monumental pity. He has been publicly mortified in front of India's playing eleven. He has been given a dressing down, stripped to his bare necessities in front of a billion people and more.
He needed to win his self-respect back. He should have resigned yesterday. Got back to earning his Rs 40 lakhs writing columns. And told the BCCI to select the team via SMS.
