Quick solution needed to solve NCA crisis

It was with great fanfare and amidst high expectations that the National Cricket Academy was launched in Bangalore on May 1 this year. Indeed, it did seem to have everything going for it. Some of the best brains and leading personalities in Indian cricket were in charge of the administration, the coaching and day to day running of the project. The facilities were second to none and earned unanimous praise from top players and officials both from India and abroad. The results were also seen in pretty quick time with a couple of lads representing the country and the NCA team winning the Buchi Babu tournament in Chennai getting the better of an experienced ONGC side in the final. Indeed, there was also talk in some circles of including the NCA side as a separate entity in the Ranji Trophy Championship.

Given this encouraging background, recent developments concerning the NCA have to be viewed with grave concern. There has to be an immediate damage control put into operation otherwise the academy, hailed in some circles as the answer to Indian cricket's ills, might run aground.

The whole sorry episode started when former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar, who is on the advisory board of the Academy, wrote in his regular column that the NCA team should not have got a three day game against the visiting Zimbabweans at Indore last month. Reacting to this, Raj Singh Dungarpur, a former BCCI president and currently chairman of the NCA said in an newspaper interview that "one gentleman being a member of the NCA said the academy boys should not have been given a game against Zimbabwe. Such people should either resign from the committee or take it on, or fall in line. You can't run with the hares and hunt with the hounds at the same time." Dungarpur said.

After going through the interview, Gavaskar came over to the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai where the NCA committee was meeting and handed over his resignation. When contacted, Gavaskar while confirming that he had indeed resigned, said he had just made the observations in his column that there were other players who deserved to play a touring side more than the NCA lads.

The rift between two leading administrators of the Academy was bad enough but worse was to follow. Within 24 hours of the stand off between Dungarpur and Gavaskar, the NCA suffered a serious setback when former Test cricketer and director of the Academy Hanumant Singh and one of the country's leading coaches attached to the NCA, Vasu Paranjpe also sent in their resignations. Though both Hanumant and Paranjpe cited health reasons for their decision to step down, it was widely believed that the tiff between Dungarpur and Gavaskar could also have been one of the reasons. By this time there were also unconfirmed reports that the National junior team coach Roger Binny, also attached to the NCA, had resigned too, though this was denied by the former Test cricketer himself. "I have not quit the NCA. In fact I am looking forward to coaching the next batch of trainees," he said in Bangalore.

Just as the game in the country seemed to be slowly recovering from the after effects of the match fixing scandal, comes this latest crisis. BCCI chief AC Muthiah, who has had more than his share of problems this year, termed the episode as "unfortunate" but expressed confidence of weathering this storm as well. After tackling the match fixing case, the latest controversy might be comparatively lightweight. All the same it is bound to have a long term adverse effect on the game in the country.

According to Muthiah, the board had no part to play in the Dungarpur- Gavaskar rift. "It is purely a personal issue between Gavaskar and Dungarpur. Gavaskar said something in his column and it is his personal opinion and Dungarpur replied in his personal capacity. The Board has nothing to do with it." All the same, Muthiah is aware of the long term implications and wider ripples that the crisis may cause. "I think we will sort it out soon," he is reported to have said. The sooner an amicable solution is found, the better for the future of Indian cricket.