$pend it!

More seriously, it’s evident that Indian cricket is a game of two extremes, the well-attended international game and its players, and the abysmal domestic structure. If ever there was a time to start bridging the two worlds, it’s now.

There is no clear indication yet of what the BCCI plans to do; while its president Jagmohan Dalmiya says that he wants to spend the money on ‘‘development programmes’’, he hasn’t specified what. When contacted on Friday, he said the case was sub judice and so he couldn’t comment.

As the Board sits for its special general meeting today, it could consider our suggestions:

GO PROFESSIONAL
In both literal and metaphorical terms, it’s time the BCCI turned professional. Currently run, by a clutch of honorary officials, like a cross between a mom’n’pop store and a neighbourhood residents’ society, it needs to rope in top administrators befitting its financial size, paying them the best salaries. And, preferably, from a fixed address. Some of the positions other cricketing boards have:

• General Manager (Media)
• Manager Administration
• Manager Commercial
• Executive (Umpiring)
• Cricket Analyst

Indeed, the BCCI should be seen as a viable career alternative — like Infosys or Wipro — attracting the best in management personnel. Pay them well, make them accountable and fix the system.

That would include selectors, too, who are also honorary officials and so easily implicated in scams.

PAYING THE PLAYERS
The next time you fume over how much cricketers are paid, consider this: Under the new contracts Sachin, Sourav and Dravid (our top 3 cricketers) will be paid approximately Rs 50 lakh a year. Now figure out how much the top-most IT or pharma or biotech professional is paid. You’ll find our cricketers are actually being paid about 20 per cent of what they should get.

Now comes the embarrassing part: figuring out how much our domestic cricketers make. Under a new deal, the share of players in Indian cricket’s huge pie will be just 26% of the turnover; half of that will go to the national team, first-class cricketers will get 10.4 per cent and juniors 2.6 per cent.

While the players’ share of Rs 350 crore a year would be huge, Indian Cricket Players’ Association secretary Arun Lal doesn’t want to jump the gun. ‘‘They have just agreed to 26%, let it get settled first. No use thinking hypothetically.’’

Still, Lal has also to think about an average Ranji star, whose salary has just touched Rs 30,000 per match from appalling previous figures of Rs 10,000.

One senior state association official was bullish on the figure rising to Rs 1 lakh per Ranji match in the future. ‘‘This (raise) will happen, it is only a question of when rather than if,’’ he said.

When talking about the players, you can’t leave out the Men in White. An average Ranji umpire’s daily fees have just recently been increased to Rs 1500 per day, whereas for a junior age-group match the salary it is pegged back to Rs 1000 per day. They are as an important stake holder in Indian cricket as any of the cricketers. An increase in salary with incentives like regular increments based on performance would only raise levels — and draw more people to the job.

BUILD THE FUTURE
If cricket is almost a religion in India, the temples are in terrible shape. With few exceptions, stadiums across the country are little better than public toilets, overgrown with weeds and falling into disrepair. The game is dying as a spectator sport, analarm the BCCI has chosen to ignore all this while; maybe this is the time to start fresh.

Just the way the stadiums are built and maintained, and facilities they offer, make a day’s cricket an outing to hell. Even the 10 Test centres are bad; only Mohali and Chennai can match the best in the world.

From the time you hunt for a parking slot, through looking for safe drinking water and edible food, to using toilets and eventually leaving in one piece, every moment makes you wish you’d stayed at home and watched the match on TV. That’s good for the TV guys but bad for the game’s future.

The answer is two-fold: New, smaller stadiums in smaller towns that can be easily maintained, and revamping the existing venues.

Also, these cricket grounds must have playable outfields. This may seem like a minor point but the star cricketer of the future will be neither batsman nore bowler but fielder. If we want future Yuvrajs and Kaifs to match the world’s best, we need to look at where we train our junior talent.

TOP-CLASS TRAINING
One of the amazing things about Indian cricket is how talent comes up without any organised method of dealing with it. The four-year-old National Cricket Academy at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium is typically ad hoc; it exists on borrowed land and is an occasional pit-stop for what is our best talent.

It needs to become a proper Centre of Excellence, a one-stop shop for the best in R&D, talent spotting with spin and pace wings, coaching, psycho-analysis.

Importantly, the trainees should be housed all year round and be offered facilities for vocational education — so that they (and their families) know they have a back-up if the game doesn’t work out. That’s what any top sports academy does.

To make the system work, trainees should be pulled in from an early age — pre-teen, definitely — through some sort of a screening, much like an IIT entrance exam. Once the child makes it, his welfare should be the BCCI’s concern.

CRICKET’S CULTURE CLUB
When was the last time you wanted to buy an India jersey or cap for your son/daughter? And were frustrated because all you got were cheap rip-offs? This is one thing you’d imagine Jagmohan Dalmiya would have perfected by now: the complete marketing of the game. It’s a wonder he didn’t see this before: A one-stop stop where you could buy India jerseys, caps, keychains, pennants.

The only time this was possible, to an extent, was during the last World Cup. But imagine the benefits for the BCCI if it were on a regular scale across the country, outside Test and ODI venues. The benefits for Indian cricket would be equally great: a homogenous fan base replacing the amporphous collection of supporters. The beginnings of a true cricket culture…

‘If Mohun Bagan can draw crowds, why not a Ranji match?’

Four cricket people on how the game could improve

Aunshuman Gaekwad
(Ex-Test cricketer, coach)
The only solution to raising the level or making domestic cricket viable is by having all top Test stars playing at all times possible. In our time, as soon as a Test ended, even the top guys like Sunny, Vishy or Jimmy Amarnath would fly down to play the next Ranji game. When this starts happening again we will be back to the same level as in the past.

Maybe taking the game to the smaller centres in the hinterland is also an option for you will always get huge crowds in places like Aurangabad, Siliguri. Or we’ll have more people watching cricket on TV than coming to the ground.

KS Vishwanathan
(Jt secy, TN Cricket Association)
Hopefully with the increase of days of domestic cricket to be shown live increasing from 20, more matches will be seen live. This would help selectors look at matches they can never attend in person.

Harish Thawani
(Chairman, TV production company Nimbus)
TV cannot work in isolation. There needs to be first a overhaul of infrastructure, for in Indian cricket there is world class money but no world class stadium. Most of the grounds are stuck in a time warp.

Forget Twenty20, it is a defensive reaction. We have to build our traditional base. For that, develop strong affiliation of state teams, something that even domestic football does very well. If a Mohun Bagan or East Bengal can draw crowds, why not a Ranji match?

There is no attempt made by State associations to advertise or merchandise team jerseys or books or videos when there is a Ranji match or any international match is in progress. We don’t even get India caps here, leave alone a Mumbai team kit. This will be a way for kids to feel a part of the game. Also you could have players, profiles being projected alongwith their achievements or even entry free of charge for kids

Jeet Banerjee
(Gameplan Sports)
This could well be the right time to introduce foreign players in the Ranji Trophy’s Elite division. For starters it will mean more money for states. Maybe even instadia advertising, for more domestic matches will be shown live. But I would like to see some overseas players being employed to raise the standard.

Chandresh Narayanan