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February 2, 1998

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No army can have two generals

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Sunil Dev

Editor's note: Sunil Dev was manager of the Indian team that toured South Africa and Zimbabwe, under Sachin Tendulkar, in December 1996-January 1997. What follows is the verbatim transcript of his report, submitted to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, at the conclusion of that tour.
Prem Panicker's detailed interview with Sunil Dev, on the issues raised here and on various other matters of cricketing importance, follows on Tuesday.

I am grateful to the Board for appointing me as Manager of the Indian Cricket Team to tour South Africa and Zimbabwe in 1996-1997. I had tremendous exposure to the standard of international cricket, different infrastructural facilities provided, the attitude and hospitality of South Africans and the people of Zimbabwe.

There are a few important features and observation of this tour which I would like to mention, with a request that if they are not implemented then I feel I was wasting my time to put it in my report.

Dress code: I recall from the photographs of Indian cricket teams in DDCA, in the 70's and 80's, that the players would wear various range of colours and clothes, it is very sad to see that nothing had changed since then. While we were set to travel, it was amazing to note that we had different sets of official blazers, various ranges of trousers, so much so that two players were not even provided with official blazers. I was surprised to know that players were not aware of what shirt was the formal attire. By my repeated requests, 3 white shirts for each player were bought, with considerable reluctance of the officers in charge, until Mr P M Rungta intervened. So the proud international Indian team, with different colour blazers and trousers and two members without the official blazers left the shores of India on 18th December, 1997.

To quote an incident, when we were to meet President Nelson Mandela on the ground at Capetown in front of thousands of people, one of our cricketers had to wear a blazer given to him by me, which was obviously without the Indian crest. Another point where one needs to take into consideration is that it is the name of the nation that is at stake is the kit provided by the sponsorer. We were delivered the kit at 8.00 pm on 17th December, knowing that we are to leave at 3.00 am of 18th December. The confusion in distributing the clothing to all 17 members was very harassing, both for the players and for myself. Here, one must consider the agony the players have to go through because of poor management. The clothes provided were of such poor quality that the logo itself faded after 2 washes and the dress started looking shabby. I would like the Board to consider the appointment of an individual, who is directly responsible for the timely delivery and quality of the clothing provided to the team. We must not forget that we are representing our nation and cannot afford to taint our reputation.

Travel: When a person plans his/her travel, all factors of travel, stay etc, are taken into consideration. But when a group travels, every day and hour are planned meticulously, step by step. Even if one step is unorganised, the whole sequence is disturbed.

In this entire tour, starting from our departure to our return, there was no responsible person present to take the responsibility of travel, neither from the travel agent nor from the Board. While on return, the national team should be received with the required amount of dignity, we had to face problems with excess baggage and we were told that 25 kgs is the weight limit. It is unreasonable to expect two months of travel, with the cricket geat and personal belongings to be accommodated in such a weight category. Had our travel agent been a little more responsible, these arrangements would not have been a big issue.

While making such an important cricket tour, the board should in advance discuss the itinerary in detail, especially with a person who has full knowledge of the country we are travelling to, and the weather and playing conditions of different grounds. Most important is that the host country should be advised in advance about our practice schedule, and other relative requirements pertaining to net practice and type of food required for players, and even practice bowlers required for the net practice.

It is important to mention here that when we host teams in India, we always have doctors on the ground with all the required medical facilities, but on our tour, though the players were insured for major injuries, but at the same time for minor ailments like viral fever, sore throat, etc., every time I had to pay their doctors available on the ground to get the boys basic treatment. This issue should be settled before tour, as we Indians our very hospitable and emotionally driven towards the welfare of travelling teams but it is not the same abroad.

Cricketing aspects of the tour: With the considerable experience of hosting foreign teams and having discussed the matter with different tour managers and listening to stories of different tours or incidents of cricketers on tour, I must say my team behaved exceptionally well both on and off the held.

Payment to the team: In my opinion, match fee plus logo fee should only be paid to 11 playing cricketers for a particular game and probably 50 per cent to the reserve players, because I feel this will motivate and inspire the cricketers sitting in reserve to play in the first XI instead of sitting and doing nothing during the match, knowing they will be paid the same amount anyway.

Considerable emphasis should be given to physical conditioning of the players. I will not hesitate in admitting that South African and Zimbabwe players were head and shoulders above the Indian team in this regard, which was apparent in the fielding and running between the wickets; when we were failing to convert singles into doubles, the opponents' running between wickets was of the highest standard. With the lack of stamina, a batsman may well lose his wickets and bowlers may struggle to keep line and length.

Two very important points I would like to mention here are:

a) Appointment of the Captain: Appointment of the captain is extremely significant for the discipline, camaraderie and team spirit and a will to win. Without being prejudicial to any name, I would like to mention here that once a captain retires as captain, he should also retire from the team as a player. Too many personalities, big names and former captains in the same team will never bring the team to the required level of dedication towards their objective of winning the game, which is the ultimate. In the past, we have had this precedent in India of changing the captains from within the side to lead the country, and as I recall from Sunil Gavaskar to Kapil Dev and vicer-versa, again back to Kapil Dev. It has also happened that while one person led the side, three former captains were also present in the same side at the time.

I feel we should take examples from the other countries and keep the captain as long as possible. At the moment groom and keep Sachin Tendulkar as a captain, for as long as he is fit to play for the country. This will help in forming a formidable side. Sachin has all the qualities of a good captain -- cricketer of world class, gentleman and a great ambassador for the country. No army can be commanded by two generals and no company can be run by two managing directors.

I feel we are making our cricket team play too much cricket. One must realise that the Indian team has been constantly playing for the last 5 months, and there is further travelling to the West Indies for the next 3 months and, on reaching home on the 11th of May, they have to to play their first match of the Independence Cup on the 13th of May. We are burning out the strength of our cricketers and even their interest towards playing cricket. I must explain here that the team was in no spirit to play in Zimbabwe while returning from South Africa. With the result that they lost at Bulawayo without giving any fight to the opponents, and were very pleased and relieved to know that the match at Harare was being washed out. Before it is too late, we must consider giving a space of at least three weeks between tours.

I was surprised to learn in South Africa that the BCCI had given some kind of authority to Mr Sunil Gavaskar to discuss any matter on playing conditions and to take a decision, if required. This was also confirmed to me by Dr Ali Bacher. I as manager of the team feel that if such a mandate was given to Mr Sunil Gavaskar as Chairman of the board's technical committee (which as a Board member I am not aware of), I should have been informed.

Role of the ICC Referee

I am not aware how the appointment of ICC referees are done and whether all the Boards have their say in their appointment or not, but I must insist that the Indian Board must put their foot down and insist on their opinion to be considered in the appointment of the referee when Indian team is travelling abroad.

I personally have nothing against the appointment of Mr Barry Jarman, but a few incidents on the Tour made it quite evident, by which even a layman could say that the ICC referee was biased. For example, Srinath was deliberately hit by Hansie Cronje, captain of the South African team, while taking a single in the first Test match at Durban on the first day. Despite my repeated requests to Mr Jarman to produce that tape for us to judge the incident, he did not oblige. I received lots of faxes and telephone calls about the same from India, asking me to raise the question with the authorities. In another incident, Pankaj Dharmani and Saurav Ganguly were fined 25 per cent of their match fee by Mr Jarman, after having a meeting with the managing committee, accusing these two players for their aggressive appealing for a catch against Adam Bacher at Johannesburg in the third Test match but he (Jarman) could not show us the recording of the incident, saying the video machine was out of order. On my discussing this incident with the Indian press and commentators, nobody even appeared to have noticed any such aggressions by the players named, that day.

The world saw Alan Donald's outburst at young Rahul Dravid in Durban in the (one day) final when Donald was being thrashed all over the ground. I immediately went to the third umpire's room and protested against Alan's behaviour to the match referee, but to my astonishment, he was the only man in the stadium who was not convinced of a foul play by Alan Donald.

In yet another incident in the third Test match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, everybody could make out the way the ground was being dried, and hardly any equipment was available with the organisers to make the ground available and ready for play. Valuable time was lost and India was denied what would have been its first ever victory over South Africans in South Africa. I was surprised -- under what rules of ICC the umpires were directing the Indian captain which bowler to be used in the last two hours of play.

Before the first Test Match at Durban, the Indian team management was called for a meeting to suggest that we should agree to play the Test match under lights with a red ball in case of bad light during the Test match and Mr Barry Jarman was advocating this case and trying to convince our management that we should be friendly and agree to this condition. I enjoyed my battle of wits with the management of South African board, Barry Jarman, Hansie Cronje and officials of Natal and finally, when we did not obviously agree to play under lights, Mr Barry Jarman said that he would speak to ICC and would be ready with the answer the following day before the toss. But I did not see him the next day and to my surprise Dr Ali Bacher, managing director of South African Board, went on record by telling the press that whereas the South African team had agreed to play under the lights, Indian team refused this request. The Indian cricket board should take this matter up seriously with Dr Ali Bacher and his remarks in the Press, and also Barry Jarman's role.

Last but not the least, I was reprimanded under section 3 and 8 of Code of Conduct of playing conditions on my remarks on Sachin's controversial catch by Jonty Rhodes at Durban in the day and night match against South Africa. I am enclosing the letter for your perusal. I had merely suggested that in such cases the third umpire should be consulted. After my meeting and deliberations with the match referee and umpires, it was amicably resolved, but I must say that the manager of an international team should not be answerable to the match referee. This point should also be taken up by Board's representative in the next ICC meeting because the logic is the manager of different countries are members of their respective Boards, and are not paid employees of the Board (barring few exceptions).

The Board must consider and recommend action against Mr Barry Jarman at the ICC meeting and to discuss the matter of manager not coming under the preview of the match referee.

Role of Dr Irani as Physiotherapist: No comments, reserved. (It will be discussed in the full meeting of the Board.)

Role of Mr Madan Lal as Coach: Mr Madan Lal has been a very hardworking cricketer and a very sincere player towards his state and country. He continues on the same path as a hard working coach and sincere in his endeavour. He wants the cricketers to work hard and wants to win every game they play and thus, sometimes becomes temperamental with everybody around him, Mr Madan Lal though is very sincere to his job and genuinely works hard.

I hope my report is taken in correct perspective and appropriate actions to the suggestions are considered.

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