This graceless act was the first major decision taken by the newly-elected members of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The new BCCI president is Raj Singh of Dungarpur, who had been anything and everything in Indian cricket, except that of a national player. Left to himself, he would have chosen himself for that remaining honour too!
Patil's sacking was in view of the team's poor performance in the Toronto Sahara Cup which Pakistan won convincingly despite being 1-2 down in the five match series. Indian cricket can absorb anything but defeat at the hands of Pakistan. It is the same in our neighbouring country also. The Singer Cup defeat in Colombo could be described as an aberration. But the loss to Pakistan?
How much was Patil responsible for the Indian debacle? Was it because of him that captain Sachin Tendulkar failed four times on the run with the bat? Can we blame Patil for the inexplicable collapses of the Indian middle order? Did Sandeep tell Ajay Jadeja to drop anchor in the final when the usually attacking batsman scored 20 to 80 in balls? And how true were the press reports that Saurav Ganguly was dropped at Patil's instance?
These issues will be debated when the Indian team returns home. Why couldn't the new BCCI team wait till then before getting rid of Patil? Did they expect to give a shock treatment to the team and a warning to Tendulkar that if he lost out again, say, in the series against South Africa, he too would be out? Dungarpur told the media that in this 'result oriented world' somebody had to pay for failures. So out want Sandeep Patil.
Mind you, he was not my choice for the job which called for total dedication, discipline and hard work. Patil had tremendous natural talent, more than Sunil Gavaskar. But he frittered away most of it. He did not bother about fitness, fielded like Alfred Jingle's West Indians who allowed Quanko Samba to score 600 plus and enjoyed the company of film starlets so much that he was lured away for a brief, unsuccessful stint in Bollywood.
Late in his career he did captain and manage Madhya Pradesh with a fair amount of success. But managing the Indian team, particularly in a series of one-dayers where the accent was always on fielding, fitness and quick running between the wickets was a bit too much for Patil.
Yet he remained optimistic, speaking too freely and too often to the media. During the tour of England, he was attacked for allowing captain Azharuddin to pay more attention to his girlfriend Sangeeta Bijlani than to his team. The Navjot Sidhu affair dented his reputation further. Sidhu was wrong in leaving the tour mid-way but wasn't the manager aware of what was going on within the team? On the Kambli disciplinary affair, Patil's stand was not clear. He and the former manager, Ajit Wadekar, traded charges in the media and it was not an edifying spectacle.
Yet, I feel it was wrong on the BCCI officials to have sacked the manager when the team was still not back in India. They should have waited for Patil's report on the Toronto disaster then quietly told him that he was being replaced by Madan Lal. The abrupt sacking would unnerve future cricket managers, captains and players who would behave as though the sword of Damocles was hanging over them all the time.
Unfortunately, that is how Raj Singh Dungarpur functions. The former prince of Dungarpur still thinks that BCCI is his fiefdom and the players and officials his vassals. From his god-like perch, Dungarpur looks down on ordinary mortals, including top cricketers and pronounces judgement on them. He was mainly responsible for keeping out great allrounder Mohinder Amarnath from the national team. Mohinder was right in calling the selectors a bunch of jokers. Dungarpur also sacked popular skipper Krish Srikkanth because he stood by his players who presented a memorandum to the BCCI demanding higher pay and perks. That too Dungarpur felt was untenable and the meek and mild Azharuddin was roped in as the Indian captain.
Worse, Dungarpur accused Kapil Dev of playing for himself and not for the country. According to him, Kapil continued to play international cricket only to overtake Richard Hadlee's tally of Test wickets! In an amazing newspaper interview, he blamed Kapil for trying to ruin the careers of some of the other Indian new ball bowlers including Manoj Prabhakar. He told a cock and bull story involving Imran Khan making these allegations against Kapil. The great Indian allrounder kept quiet and ignored these accusations.
The nadir of Indian cricket during recent years was reached in 1990 when Dungarpur, who was never more than a Rajasthan Ranji player, that too because of his princely connections, was made chairman of the selectors. With great fanfare, he announced a 'team of the 1990s' which did not include experienced players like Dilip Vengsarkar, Srikkanth and Ravi Shastri. The team was beaten by lowly New Zealand. Manager Bishan Bedi was so incensed that he threatened to 'throw the entire team into the Pacific Ocean'. He did not include the chairman of the selectors.
Indian cricket needs some drastic remedies. Even the media hype about the new captain did not work out. Singlehandedly, Sachin Tendulkar cannot do much. With two successive defeats in the Singer and Sahara Cups, his much-touted ability to motivate the team has been shattered. With the irresponsible Dungarpur as the helm of the BCCI, the captain will have a tough time because the new president is quite capable of interfering with the selection process.
Dungarpur fancies the English and is full of admiration for British etiquette. I feel Dungarpur wants to model himself on Ray Illingworth, who fancied himself as a no-nonsense cricket manger and chairman of the selectors. He failed on both counts. Illingworth also treated some top players including Devon Malcolm like dirt. With Dungarpur at the helm we can expect a similar scenario in Indian cricket.
May God save Indian cricket!
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