Prabhakar, Lamba join ranks of unemployed
Amrit Mathur
Cricketers are a privileged and pampered lot - remember Michael Ferreira's
tirades?
The way it goes is, in India cricketers really have it easy. While prominent
achievers in other sports struggle, cricketers receive goodies
on a platter -- they land jobs easily, make serious money, get
plenty of exposure and, of course, social recognition is never a problem.
Attracted by cricket's popularity, private companies and sundry
sponsors scramble to attach themselves to the sport. As a result,
in every major city across the country, companies provide jobs to players of varying
merit, merely to play local tournaments and project its image.
Such recruitment involves a big expense, but for the mileage-hungry
organizations it matters little. Obviously, they reason, the tab
is well justified on the basis of publicity and advertisement accruing from the presence of stars under their banner.
This cosy arrangement -- of unending corporate support - was recently
shattered when Escorts, an established patron of cricket in Delhi,
pulled the plug.
In a sudden move, they disbanded their cricket
team, packed off their players. No more cricket, they
decided.
The move shocked everyone - but surely a rethink on such matters
stems from sound economic reasons. Sustaining a cricket team costs
a large amount of money, and the return is often questionable.
Moreover, what does an organization in these times of financial
stringency do with a big group of unproductive, untrained, unemployable
personnel once their active playing careers are over?
Among those affected at Escorts are former test players Manoj
Prabhakar, Raman Lamba, Chetan Sharma and Vijay Yadav plus a host
of Ranji players. Strangely the company had only recently inducted
fresh players - just shortly before deciding they were closing shop and discontinuing
the team.
The sacked players have received termination benefits
in cash, but the money
hardly compensates for the accompanying pain. Many of those players have passed their use-by date and are, thus, unlikely to find alternate employment elsewhere. Wailed one dismissed cricketer:
"I can't play, I can't get another job! I don't know what to do!"
In a way, both employers and the players have contributed to the latter's misery. Quite often, companies rush
into cricket without sufficient thought, decisions are taken not
as a consequence of well thought out vision but on the whim of
the cricket-crazed chief executive. The role of cricketand the players is not merged into corporate strategy - players are
recruited, given fancy salaries/ perks only because the boss desires
the proximity of a cricket celebrity.
Often, the financial results from such patronage are meagre. As
club cricket and local tournaments are disorganized, a corporate
team participating in them and doing well hardly matters - two
inches of mention dumped in one corner of the sports page is hardly
worth the company's while.
Moreover, what major publicity benefit can a controversial
cricketer like Manoj Prabhakar provide? Given his track record
of hitting the wrong buttons instead of projecting the association,
a sensitive employer careful about his image would rather hide
the fact.
Usually the companies don't know what to do with players they recruit. Cricket
keeps them occupied for a while, but rest of the time they are
allowed to waste themselves. There is no policy to integrate them
into productive jobs, no training to upgrade skills, no move to
place them on the corporate ladder. Strangely, compared to the
so-called well managed, modern private sector companies, the Railways - the
oldest patrons of sports in India -- display greater foresight.
They insist that all sportsmen on their roster undergo training to acquire necessary
skills in order to fit into regular cadres. Deadwood is thus
reduced. True, not every pehalwan becomes a good officer, but most manage to do their duties reasonably well.
Wastage is thus minimized, and integration of sportsmen with others
is accomplished smoothly. In most private companies, there is no
such vision -- cricketers just play, learn no other skills, and visit
the office only to collect salaries.
The Escorts move has sent shock waves through the community because, if this can happen
to cricket, the fate of other sports can only be more harsh. The
disbanding of the cricket team shows that ultimately, the balance
sheet triumphs, decisions are made considering profitability,
the MD's weakness to show off a cricket celebrity is only a passing
thing.
In the end, all have to reassess the cost of supporting
sports and expensive sportsmen. Escorts - and other organizations -
will sustain sports only on this yardstick. Which is why talk of sports promotion,
as a national or social obligation, is pure rubbish.
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