Dravid douses the fire

If Rahul Dravid's unusually belligerent statement at a press conference in Kolkata kept the issue of the leaked report from Chetan Desai, the manager of the Indian team for the Test tour of South Africa, in the public eye, then his decidedly composed response to questions on the subject has put it on the backburner in Rajkot. When asked if he was going to speak to the Board of Control for Cricket in India about the matter, he simply said, "If they ask me, I will tell them."

When pressed further, and asked if the latest controversy came at the worst possible time for Indian cricket with preparations for the forthcoming World Cup happening in right earnest, Dravid said, "It's just a part and parcel of being a cricketer in India. In the last three or four years, there has never been a time when there have been no controversies. To be honest with you, it's just part and parcel," he said, refusing to be drawn into further controversy.

"We are cricketers, we learn how to adjust and deal with it and move on and focus on the cricket, our team and try and get the good performances in. There's a lot of interest regarding cricket, a lot of speculation, a lot of talk. So I guess that's the way it is going to be all the time, we can't change that can we?"

Dravid went on to add that neither he nor the team were worried about anything in the face of the latest controversy. "Nothing really worries me," he said. "I accept it's part and parcel of being a cricketer and if I am asked to give an explanation, then I will give one."

Meanwhile Niranjan Shah, the secretary of the BCCI, and also the secretary of the Saurashtra Cricket Association, said that he was yet to get Dravid's views on the exact reason why he came out so strongly against Desai. "We will all be meeting together in Mumbai on Monday to select the team for the World Cup," said Shah. "We will discuss this issue at that time."

On a different note, Shah said there would be no conditioning camp for the Indian team ahead of the World Cup. "The boys finish this series on February 17. They will then go to their respective homes for a week or so and assemble in Mumbai on February 26, before leaving for the Caribbean on February 28," he said. "In any case, once they go to the West Indies, they will have 15 days before their first World Cup fixture, and by that time, they would have played a couple of practice games as well."

Shah was also confident that the Board would be able to finalise the contracts for the players soon, and when asked about the delay in doing so, said, "It just goes to show the amicable relationship between the players and Board. We will sit with the senior players at the end of this series and prepare a draft of the contract. The process should be completed shortly."

Shah announced that two Saurashtra cricketers would be with the Indian team on Sunday, should the need for a fielder arise, given the injury concerns. However, he could not, off the top of his head, name the two players who would get a chance to spend some time in the Indian dressing-room. "Our main side is away playing the West Zone Ranji one-day tournament, but two players who have played Ranji Trophy for us will help the Indian team," he said.