Gavaskar: Gavaskar on NZ cricket and the upcoming tour (04 Aug 95)

Gavaskar discusses NZ cricket and the upcoming NZ tour of India.

Sunil Gavaskar

ONE was waoting quite anxiously for the announcemnet of the itin. of hte NZ cricket team`s tour of Ind simply to see if the Board had been pressurized into changing the venues of some of the intl.s that the NC coach Gle Turner had sought to do while speaking to ravi chaturvedi, the noted hinid commentator. now "panditji" as chaturvedi is fondly known in cricketing circles is a friend of all cricketers but he must guard against being used by foreigners who want to pressure indian cricket into doing something aginst its interesets.

By letting out that turner wanted change of a few venues, chat. put pressure indirectly on the Board but fortunately for indian cricket it did not work for todays board members, or more specifically, those in charge of running the board are made of sterner stuff and will not succumb to such pressures. when india tours other countries neither its mgr nor its capn is ever asked by reporters or comm. from those countries wether they agree w/ the venues given to them or not. in fact, 1 is sure that even if the indian board were to directly ask for a change of venues from the countries it is visiting it would be thrown out @once.

In the past the ind brd would have changed venues because inspite of being full members of the ICC, the ind brd rep.s often did the bidding of the Eng and Au brds. all that has changed now as the new office bearers are confident of themselves and do not carry the BritishEmpire hangover. if NZCC expected that it would get the venues changed, they were in for a surprise.

Our brd. has thankfully not forgotten the slight to the indian team who were not only not invited for the oopening ceremony of the NZCC Cent. Tourn. last yr, but were dispatched to some farflung place for a practice match.

Neither the mgr or the cpn were invited to attend the fn.s to which the other 3 participating teams were inivted. remember also that after the WC wasallotted to India, NZ was 1 of the countries that said it would not change its domestic shcedule and may thus not participate. it was only when the NZCC realized that w/ SA`s readmission into ICC that it would be left to fend for itself w/ Au, Eng, SA and WI playing against each other and that it would be left out of the action that the then NZCC chief graham dowling came down to INdia to mend fences and that`s how the invitiation for the NZCC CT came about. but since it was a matter of adjustment and not an invitation from the heart (India was not an original invitee) the basic courtesy of inviting the team or its mgmt for the inaugural ceremonies was overlooked.

GT`s efforts by trying to use chtrvd. was a good one and though it did not succeed, it is still and indication of what Indian cricket will have to face when NZ come touring in oct. turner possesses one of the shrewdest cr.ing brains and and India can underestimate NZ only @its own peril. abilitywise he will be among the 1st to concede that he was ltd but the manner in which he used that ability so successfully shows how he combinied hardnosed pro.ism w/ his cr.ing thinking to come out on top. having been to India as a comm. (and he is undoubtedly a terrific comm.) he has seen 1sthand the venues and the kind of wkts @these venues &will be able to give this inval. i/p to the team.

The kiwis are lead by a player who has never played for NZ before &how that is goiing to affect the otehrs in the team remains to be seen but it is def.ly notgoingto be easy for him to try &lead others who have rep.d NZ in Tests and ODers. eng brought back keith fletcher to the team after a gap of 3yrs and appointed him capn when there were top players like boycott, botham, gooch, taylor in the side. not surprisingly he was never able to control them.

A player has to be a certainty in the side for his playing ability &if allied to that ability is the skill to lead, the he becomes a good capn. KF would never have made it to that eng side on his batting but because he was capn, a vatting place had to be found for him &that creates resentment. no wonder players like boycott &botham who were performers for eng were unable to accept him as their leader and obey his orders. it wont be surprising if the NC cpn faces the same problem though NZ has less superstars than KF`s teams &that may be to his advt.

The NZ tour also gives the Indian board the chance to try out a couple of candidates for the post of the mgr in case wadekar is adamant about not wanting the job. if, however, wadekar is avlbl then he should be appted straightaway but if he is not then the Tests and the ODers could be split in such a way that 2 candidates can be given the opportunity to show their skills @man mgmt and tehn on that performace as well as some i/p by players like ahzar, tendulkar, sidhu about the tactical strenght of the mgr an apptmt could be made for the Wills WC.

Yes, consulting the cpn and the senior players is imp for there is no pt in having a mgr who has no rapport w/the team. we`ve found that out already, haven`t we? speaking of consulting the cpn, it was disappointing to read about azhar`s disapptmt @the venues of the matches for India in the WC. but what prevnted azhar from writing to the board before the allottments about the venues which he thought were good for the Indian team.

After all it takes <10min to write &fax them to the brd or to any member of Indcom. what was azhar so busy w/ that he could not find time to write about the venues he preferred for the Indian team. there is no pt cpmplainig about the venues epsecially since he did not take the trouble to write or make known his preferences earlier. the only thing the indcom should be thankful about is that @least azhar did not move the court to get his preferred venues! but that is another story altogether!!

--Professional Management Group

ARAB NEWS FRI AUG 4, 1995