Drawing the boundary

Dilip Vengsarkar has thankfully refrained from extending any longer the spectacle of the chief selector rallying his colleagues in revolt against the BCCI, Indian cricket8217;s governing body. On Thursday he agreed to stop writing a newspaper column, in deference to the BCCI8217;s recent restraint on selectors. Given the unfortunately long time the controversy stayed alive, with the selectors turning the curb into a question of freedom of expression and capacity to earn remuneration while holding posts which don8217;t carry a regular salary, the core issue remains very salient. It brings up sport8217;s eternal contrast. The men who run it and those who play it on the field. Those who elect to be part of sport administration must know that their code of service must be tailored to the needs of the game and those who play it. It was this order of priority that Vengsarkar was threatening to overturn.

The BCCI8217;s gag on media interactions is part of a code of conduct for selectors that includes curbs on their presence in the dressing room. The board does not have a particularly good record of keeping the team insulated from the intrigue and lobbying that are believed to exist in Indian cricket. But on this code, it has got it right. Team selection, as coaches and captains often complain, can be a very opaque process. There are often considerations of regional pressure and public expectation. There is, inevitably, a suspicion amongst dropped cricketers that arbitrariness can prevail. There is, more damagingly, always speculation of vested interests and cliques. Put together, this can wreck the work ethic in the sport and create a terrible atmosphere of edginess in the dressing room.

It may not, therefore, be a question of the right and wrong of what a selector chooses to say in public 8212; or of the comments he makes in the dressing room. The problem is that even the most innocuous of statements on the state of play or the current form of a cricketer can lend itself to multiple connotations. Surely, Vengsarkar and his cohorts would agree that this is not healthy for the players.