Metro muddle

8216;8216;Slow death,8217;8217; declares former Test umpire Piloo Reporter, blaming the comatose club cricket scene. 8216;8216;These tournaments, especially the Times Shield, were a steady supply line for the national side.8217;8217;

At its peak, with 15-20 first class players half of them with Test caps in the fray, even getting into a successful club side was hugely competitive.

Former Mumbai player VS Patil, now coach of Poddar College, has a simple question: How many bowlers have taken more than 400 wickets in the Kanga League8217;s 57-year history? In the decades that he spent toiling at club fixtures, Patil took 759 wickets in the Kanga League alone. Now, he says, which club you join depends on how well-connected it is.

He talks of the legendary Dadar Union, a star club only because of its team sheeet: SM Gavaskar, DB Vengsarkar, SV Manjrekar, RJ Shastri. 8216;8216;Now, any player with a few Ranji Trophy matches to his name has to be coaxed to play a Kanga League or Purshottam Shield match,8217;8217; Patil says glumly.

8212; Sudheendra Tripathi

Chennai: Money talks, and scores

The TNCA League is probably the best current city club cricket competition and for one simple reason: Money. Money is poured in and, as it attracts stars, pulls in even more money. 8216;8216;There are many reasons but they can be lumped in two broad categories 8212; involvement of corporates and the competitiveness it ensures. Everything good in Chennai league cricket links up to either of them or both,8217;8217; says CR Vijayaraghavan, TNCA honorary secretary.

Almost all the leading companies down south 8212; India Cements, SPIC, India Pistons, Godrej, Ashok Leyland, MRF, Chemplast, TI Cycles 8212; have their own clubs in the premier division and support other clubs financially in many divisions.

The benefits are obvious. 8216;8216;Corporate involvement gives the cricketers more security, as they also get jobs. And with the big names taking part, there is more glamour in the league,8217;8217; says TA Shekhar, coach at the MRF Pace Foundation, which also owns Globe Trotters, a club in the first division.

The glamour last season came in the form of Rahul Dravid, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Mongia and Anil Kumble the stars can play because the league is from July to October, the off-season for regular cricket. The money: professional fees range from Rs 4,000 per month to around Rs 1 lakh a month for the big names.

One of the highest paid league cricketers is former Indian opener Sadagopan Ramesh. His take on the success of the TNCA league is that it covers many angles. 8216;8216;The corporates8217; interest in building cricket is not just restricted to employing players. Each team has the benefit of its own physio, trainer and a home ground.8217;8217;

All this makes the league more competitive. The Rajah of Palayampatti Shield to give the premier division title its full name is next in importance among locals only to the Ranji Trophy.

And one main reason is that it forms the sole criterion for selection to the Tamil Nadu Ranji team, says VB Chandrashekhar, national selector and chairman of the TN selection committee. 8216;8216;99 per cent of the team is from the premier division. That8217;s not planned, it happens by default because if you are good, you8217;ll be picked.8217;8217;

One shining example of the league8217;s success is Lakshmipathy Balaji. Hailing from the districts, he was playing in the second division when he was spotted by Jolly Rovers. The rest is history.

8212; G.S. Vivek

Kolkata: Ground Realities

It8217;s ironic that the very association that houses Indian cricket8217;s most important people has done little over the years to develop the game at the local level. The numbers are impressive 8212; there are 95 club teams registered with the Cricket Association of Bengal with the first division comprising 37 sides 8212; but they don8217;t add up to much.

8216;8216;Most of the 37 sides in the first division don8217;t have any title hopes at all. They are content with going through the season playing the matches,8221; says former Bengal skipper Raju Mukherji.

CAB boss Jagmohan Dalmiya makes a candid confession on the state of Kolkata club cricket. 8216;8216;Let me be frank, there aren8217;t too many pluses I can think of. In fact, there are several minuses that need work.8217;8217;

And the most striking one of them is the state of the grounds and pitches. 8216;8216;This is the only sport for which grounds need to be constantly supervised. That8217;s not possible because other sports are being played on the grounds whenever cricket is not played.8217;8217;

8216;8216;We have the worst of tracks and outfields in Kolkata8217;8217;, says former Bengal captain Arun Lal, 8216;8216;and that shows the CAB8217;s apathy towards developing the game here. There is no panel or body in place to monitor the maintenance, rather the lack of it, at most of the city club grounds.8221;

How does this affect on-field performance? Fast bowlers suffer, says India pacer Shib Shankar Paul. 8216;8216;Since the grounds are extremely small, the bowlers get carted all over for boundaries. As a fast bowler, you either have to take wickets or you get hit for boundaries, which does not do our confidence any good.8217;8217;

8212; Nadim Siraj

Delhi: It8217;s bad, so why bother?

If the basic idea of conducting a local league is to provide competition to aspiring players, an opportunity to showcase their skills, the DDCA8217;s league is a miserable failure. 8216;8216;The ugliest pimple on the face of Indian cricket,8217;8217; an ex-Delhi player called it.

League performance gets little or no weightage when it comes to selection of state teams, which is why Jitender Solanki and Ashish Sharma 8212; named the league8217;s best players 8212; fail to find a place in the Delhi state side.

Or take the case of Anshul Gupta. He scored centuries in the quarters, the semis and the finals of the DDCA-conducted tournament to select the U-15 team but failed to find a place. Eventually the selectors changed their opinion and inducted him for the knockouts, where he scored heavily.

But the DDCA has its own rationale for this policy: the quality of league cricket is bad. 8216;8216;Selection is based on performance. If league performances are not up to the mark to select state teams, it8217;s not our fault,8217;8217; says DDCA sports secretary and selection committee convenor Sunil Dev.

And that8217;s something even his arch-rival, committee co-chairman Chetan Chauhan, agrees with. 8216;8216;Even the best teams leave a lot to be desired. There are no fresh recruitments, most of the players are too old to be considered.8217;8217; So where is the Delhi team picked from? The Under-17 Vijay Merchant Trophy, Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy and Under-22 tournaments, where the main players come from the league.

The newly-elected sports committee promised much about a new league format but they have failed to deliver. Fixtures are altered without informing the teams concerned; umpires are not properly informed in time; many venues don8217;t have proper playing facilities.

No wonder the leading Ranji players stay away from the league. Barring Aakash Chopra Sonnet Club, and to some extent Rahul Sanghvi ONGC, no other Ranji player takes the league seriously.

8212; S. Santhanam 038; Sidharth Monga

PART I

PART II