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Journalism of Courage
It started out in full filmi fashion as former India all-rounder and MP Kirti Azad,wearing a black band on his forehead,put up a Get Well Soon placard and placed flowers outside the main gate of the Delhi & District Cricket Association premises. The silent protest,after Tuesdays various shouting matches during the bodys AGM,then transformed into a candlelight march,which has become a trend over the last year.
Giving support to Azad outside the locked Ferozeshah Kotla stadium on Wednesday evening was his 1983 World Cup winning team mate Madan Lal,and fast bowlers Vivek Razdan and Robin Singh Jr,as last Sundays pitch fiasco continued to hog the limelight.
The two-hour march was the first on the list of many such protests planned over the next few days. Former India skipper Bishen Singh Bedi will carry the torch on Thursday in a press conference,as the agitation,which started with a demand of accountability for the dangerous pitch for the India-Lanka ODI,has now become a means to address several other problems in the DDCA.
Later in the evening,news filtered out that the DDCA was mulling over the formation of a Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) to take stock of the cricketing affairs. The CIC is a remixed version of the failed Cricket Committee that was to be formed with Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi as its head after the Virender Sehwag-led players revolt earlier this year.
The CIC is expected to be a five-member committee with leading international cricketers and Delhi skippers while some of the senior cricketers leading the protest against the association are also likely to be invited to be part of the improvement process.
DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan confirmed that the association has been thinking along the lines of forming a committee. The president has discussed issues with the executive and hes in the process of finalising a few things including a committee, he said. Sports Secretary Sunil Dev added,After Sehwag highlighted transparency issues in selection of Delhi teams,we immediately rectified it. This year our Ranji team is playing the semi-finals,the under-19 and under-16 have also reached the knockout stages, Dev said.
Earlier,the former cricketers demanded more professionalism in running the affairs,transparency,and for the involvement of people who have played the game in running the state body. What happened on Sunday is the 26/11 of cricket, thundered Azad,drawing a comparison with the Mumbai terror attack. When there was a national calamity,the Maharashtra chief minister and home minister resigned. When a train accident happens,the minister resigns owing moral responsibility. So why not in DDCA?
Tell me why are the best names in Delhi cricket Bishen Bedi,Madan (Lal),Jimmy (Mohinder Amaranth),Maninder (Singh),and myself nowhere near the Kotla premises? Thats because we cant collect proxies and some other fellow who has 10 proxies in his pocket walks in and call the shots, he said. Out of 4,200 members in the DDCA,only 150 are cricketers,with Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir joining the association only recently.
Madan Lal,meanwhile,said that this was a wake-up call. The sports committee must be disbanded. They appoint all their near and dear ones at critical positions and run cricket their own way. Vijay Bahadur Mishra (the curator) is himself a member of the sports committee. They get financial benefits out of this, he said. I am here to say that strong action must be taken.
