‘Millions and millions have come into cricket… We have to get over the feeling that making money is a crime’

•It’s nice talking to you in what really has been your creation—the finest cricket ground in the country.

It has been a team effort. We are a wonderful team and we’ve been working as a team. That’s the result you get when you work as a team.

•This dressing room looks like a first-class lounge at an international airport.

We are happy to keep adding facilities. We are still a long way from being the best ground in the world and our objective is to be the best. There is no reason why what they do in stadia abroad can’t be done in India. We’ve got more money in the game.

•I’m glad you say this because more and more people are beginning to say it, though in the past we were shy to admit that we generate so much money, that we are a big source of funding around the world.

We had some business people with conservative outlook who said one should never talk about making money because you invite the wrath of the government, you invite the jealousy of the media and you get on everybody’s wrong side. But at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with it. We have to get over this feeling that making money is a crime. We’ve had this feeling in the country for too long. Just as the country is getting over this mindset, the cricket board is also getting rid of it.

•So when do we see this as the home of cricket?

We have a master plan, which we were originally scheduled to complete by 2020, but we have fast-tracked it because a lot more money is coming into the game.

•This is more money than you had imagined and it has come sooner than you had thought.

More money has come into the game than we had thought. In the past three years it has been nothing short of a revolution. It’s millions and millions. Many state associations can’t find the means of spending it. That’s the way money is pouring in.

•Is there a problem of plenty? You don’t know what to do with it?

Some associations have a problem of plenty. They aren’t spending on infrastructure, they still don’t have a ground of their own. They don’t know how to because the money has to be spent within a year—85 per cent under the taxation laws. The result is that 20 new grounds are coming up and people are pouring in a lot of money on the infrastructure and creating facilities that will be as good as anywhere in the world.

•What kind of money are you sitting on? What’s your war chest at the moment?

In the Punjab Cricket Association, we spend the money as we go along. We keep improving facilities and we have taken up projects in districts.

•Are you building a stadium in Bathinda?

We are building a stadium in Bathinda, we are building a stadium in Jalandhar.

•The butt of many jokes, but lately made famous by the movie Jab We Met (laughs).

(Laughs) We want to have this facility in every district. We are taking up 500 schools in rural areas, where we are setting up infrastructure which will be as good as the practice facilities in Mohali.

•And how much is the BCCI sitting on?

The BCCI has cash, but 70 per cent of the money they make, in terms of media rights, is being given to the states. Most of the money is going to the states as part of their share of the revenue.

•Are you convinced that the states are using the money well?

Not all of them. Unless they set up infrastructure, have facilities at the district level, go to the grassroot level, provide coaches and equipment to schools…

•Tell me about some states that are using the money well.

Money is being used very well in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Vidarbha. Saurashtra has done an outstanding job, they are building a beautiful stadium.

•So finally the tradition of Ranji and…

Yes, it’s coming up. It’s an amazing success story for a small state like Saurashtra. Punjab has been doing well, but we came into the big league a number of years ago. Uttar Pradesh is doing so well at the national level, producing so many players, and they are coming from smaller towns.

•It’s odd, you know. We are walking past this magnificent pavilion and we see an anti-corruption surveillance unit, an ICC hotline, and no electronic communication (pointing to a sign on the door). Cricket has gone through a lot.

Cricket has gone through a lot, but it is a sign that reflects the positive side of the game, because anti-corruption has to be a very strong part of the game to regulate it.

•Tell me about your whistle-blowing moments.

It was a sordid and sad chapter as an administrator is not happy doing these things. A number of people advised me that I was running down the game that I had helped, in small measure, to build. But somebody has to play the role when this kind of malady takes over the game and, in retrospect, I feel it was a good thing. It was good for the game and the ICC’s anti-corruption unit has done a wonderful job. We no longer hear what we used to hear in the late ’90s.

•There’s no doubt matches were fixed.

I know and this was proved by an independent inquiry by the CBI.

•One match on this ground looked like it was fixed. We were shot out in two hours by the West Indies in a Test match.

I was told by those who had investigated the match and was shocked to learn that one of the first matches they said was fixed was played at Mohali. One felt very sad that it was happening right under our noses. We didn’t know at that time, but it is a fact.

•It was the match in which Manoj Prabhakar was injured.

Prabhakar was injured and most of the Indian team was out within two hours, even before the chief guest arrived. We were lucky we finished the match with the last batsman holding on for an hour-and-a-half and the chief guest could arrive.

•Tell me, is the game clean now?

To the best of my knowledge, the anti-corruption unit has done an outstanding job. They impose all kinds of restrictions, even on administrators, but I think it’s good for the game.

•Two things nag me. One, there were many Indian cricketers who came under the cloud and suffered because of the suspicion of being involved. One of them is Mohammad Azharuddin. He looks like the only one who has paid for it.

He is one of the few who have paid for it. Another one who paid a heavy price and lost his life was Hansie Cronje. At least he was honest enough to admit to fixing. The others haven’t been so honest and forthcoming. But it was a malady afflicting the game. You are right about Azharuddin. It couldn’t have been fixed by one or two people, a lot many people would have to be involved to get the match fixed.

•How was Azhar singled out?

He was the one indicted by the investigators. He, along with Ajay (Jadeja), was indicted and the board had to take action because the CBI gave a report and the public opinion was that the board should take action. I was the one to blow the whistle, but I was also the one who invited Azhar to a public function. The ICC raised an objection, and I said, ‘No way, we are inviting all former India captains. The board office is being opened, it’s part of our history and we cannot write off his contributions.’

•Did you ever talk to him, a fine player like that? Did you analyse what went wrong? Or were the times like that?

None of the Indian players admitted that they were involved. They maintained that they had been made scapegoats by the investigators. So it’s very hard to talk to him on this issue. Otherwise he has a good equation with me. He wants to be back, he wants to give something to the game. He wants to be a commentator, he wants to be a coach.

•Everybody else seems to have been rehabilitated as commentator or writer. Only Azhar has been left behind.

That’s because the ICC didn’t allow him to be a commentator in a match in Pakistan. He was asked to leave the grounds. They’ve been pushing it too far. You are affecting the right to livelihood, a fundamental right, for something that has not gone through a code of law in terms of evidentiary value—it’s merely a departmental inquiry.

•Were the deaths of three key characters involved with that dark phase—Hansie Cronje, Mark Mascarenhas and one of his top managers—deaths that just happened or are there still questions to be answered?

All three were accidents, two were auto accidents and one a plane accident. All are unnatural deaths—accidental death is not a natural cause. So you have all kinds of rumours. It’s very difficult to find the truth.

•But do they raise questions in your head?

A number of people do raise questions, but my training is such that I won’t raise questions until I have substantive evidence. It’s not fair to their memory and others, this pointing of fingers without substantive evidence. But there are rumours and a number of people have spoken to me about it.

•Because you know there were really nasty people involved in match-fixing.

The mafia was involved. The underworld was involved.

•And they wouldn’t stop at taking a life.

It is in the realm of possibility, but unless you have hard evidence, to say anything on this would be difficult.

•Talking about charges of evidentiary value, you faced a lot of this when building this beautiful stadium.

Yes, I was told that I faced a CBI inquiry and the main reason was because I was the whistle-blower and people were unhappy. Instead of the ones who became victims of whistle-blowing facing the music, I faced it for four years. They said I had taken the land on nominal lease, as if I had taken it for personal use or personal fiefdom. This is a facility that thousands of players have used and millions are joining to use.

•There was a phase when not too many people came to help or speak up for you.

And you were the one, I remember, who wrote an editorial, a centre-piece article in The Indian Express, at that point of time.

•All that is in the past. Now you are an adviser to the ICC. Cricket is having its longest purple patch in its history.

Yes. It has changed beyond recognition in the past three or four years.

•What does it look like now?

Cricket is operating at a different plane altogether. Unfortunately, this development is mainly confined to India. It’s not a global phenomenon—in major cricket-playing nations, it is only at No. 4 or 5… We need to take it to new emerging areas, China and the US—that is one of the responsibilities.

•You might just regret it. Hockey was taken to all these countries and we can’t even qualify for the Olympics.

We are talking of the good of the game and making it a global sport.

•Once the Chinese figure out the game, you might discover new kinds of spin swings that you could never have thought of.

They are going to figure it out in the next four years. They’ve taken it very seriously. The Indian board has assigned a number of coaches for training in schools, starting at the grassroot level. And by the next Asian Games they will be ready to challenge quite a few of the major cricketing powers.

•I can’t let you get away without asking for some stories. You’ve spent so much time with cricketers. What about Harbhajan?

Harbhajan is the joker in the pack. The team tells me he keeps everybody in good humour, he lifts the spirit of the team when they are down. When the hearing in Australia was over, they were all sitting in my room, and Dhoni asked Sachin, ‘What did he really say?’ and Sachin said, ‘No, he didn’t say anything.’ So I asked him, ‘You didn’t say anything and we believe Sachin, but the Australians are accusing you of using the same in Mumbai.’ He said, ‘No sir, I’ll never lie to you. I never used the word. When the crowd was making monkey gestures, I just said your friends are calling you.’

•But he is a fighter. Matthew Hayden called him the most charged player.

He is a fighter, but in the game you have to have a certain code of conduct for the players. When I left Adelaide, I warned him to be careful and that this kind of thing should never be repeated. There may be the greatest of provocations but…

•But the Australians provoked them.

I said there may be the greatest of provocations, but we Indians have our own standards and ethos.

•You would have banned him if the monkey charge had been true?

Absolutely. The Indian board has zero-tolerance… the word is banned.

•But at the same time we celebrate that this Indian team now gives it back.

Yes, but giving it back within limits is fine.

•One of the lowest moments in Indian cricket was during the series in South Africa. You saw Kepler Wessels knocking Kapil on the shin and Kapil took it. We’ve come a long way since then.

Yes, that is ok, but then it has to be within the norms laid down by the board of India.

•If the same incident had happened today, one Kepler Wessels hitting one Kapil Dev, how would this team have reacted?

The team would have reacted, the board would have reacted. It’s the administrators who have to take a call and not allow the team to get into this kind of thing.

•Is that the difference, the clout of the Indian board?

Clout, I wouldn’t say. The clout the Indian board has had in the ICC since we moved the World Cup out of England in 1983. That’s the time we established our majority in ICC in terms of carrying, in a democratic polity, the largest number of people within the ICC family.

•It’s only now that you are using this clout.

It’s not that we are using clout. We are using it for the good of the game, to make the game better for players in terms of protection, no victimisation, no double standards.

•Once you go you should manage to get a couple of umpires in the elite panel.

They have to qualify for that. We have to improve the standard of our umpiring.

•We had that Bucknor experience.

It’s a very tough job and somehow we didn’t devote any effort for that kind of thing. We are planning for Simon Taufel to conduct a workshop, we are using the services of Cricket Australia. We should not have the attitude that we don’t want to learn from the West.

•As is the case with foreign coaches.

Yes. I see no reason why we should not have the best coaches, the best physios, the best trainers if the resources are available. If they are available in India, then best of luck to them. If they aren’t available in India, then the board can afford the best.

•All the best in your new innings. You have a lot of things to do. Indian Premier League is going to be one great moment.

It’ll take a couple years to settle down but I’m sure it will be a wonderful event.

(The transcript was prepared by Mandakini Raina.)