Quartet got shabby treatment

CHENNAI, July 29: The Indian team management in Colombo were on tenterhooks on Monday. Noel David and Saba Karim had left, the match agains...

CHENNAI, July 29: The Indian team management in Colombo were on tenterhooks on Monday. Noel David and Saba Karim had left, the match against the Sri Lankan Board XI was to commence on Tuesday, and the four replacements had not yet arrived in the Sri Lankan capital. There was a practice session scheduled for the evening followed by a team meeting, which is generally mandatory on the eve of a match. But the four players, Nayan Mongia, Gagan Khoda, Vinod Kambli and Rajesh Chauhan, after undergoing a lot of tension — and keeping the team management in suspense almost the entire day — finally reached Colombo only in the night.

The Indian Express ,on Tuesday, came to know of the reasons behind the delayed departure of the quartet and it makes for rather sad reading.

Nasen Alexander and Christy Daniel of the Chennai branch of Trade Wings Limited, who have been the travel agents of the Board of Control for Cricket India for close to fifteen years now, for one, have given Alan Wilson, the Chennai Station Manager of Air Lanka, the title `Arrogant Alan.’

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The visa officer of the Sri Lankan High Commission, Wimalasena, had been gracious to open the office early on Monday for speedy clearance of the documents of the four players. Nasen had specifically gone there for this purpose, while the Indian cricketers, accompanied by Christy and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association representative, K Murali, headed for the airport to take the 11:30 a.m. Indian Airlines flight. They reached the airport by 10:45 p.m. as a traffic jam hindered their progress. But the flight IC 573, was put off to 5:30 p.m. due to a technical snag.

The duo from Trade Wings then approached Alan Wilson and requested him to see that the Indian cricketers were put on the 11:15 a.m. Air Lanka flight, UL 126, to Colombo which had also been delayed by 25 minutes.

After listening to the duo’s explanation that the four cricketers would have to be in Colombo by Monday afternoon for their practice session and the team meeting as they had a first class fixture from Tuesday, Wilson said: “The economy class is full and the four can be put in the Select Class — a difference of Rs 1,500 per ticket.”

Said Christy: “When Nasen and I took the money to Wilson and we were shocked by his sudden disinclination to issue tickets, saying that there were no tickets available. We later came to know that the flight took off with eleven vacant seats.”

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“In the evening we accompanied the players to the airport for the delayed Indian Airlines flight, scheduled to leave at 5:15 p.m., when we were stuck in a traffic jam for about 45 minutes, and reached the airport at 5:25 p.m.,” said Christy.

When contacted, Alan Wilson said: “The Trade Wings agents approached me at 11:10 a.m. and I told them only the Select Class tickets were available and it would cost another Rs 1,500 per head.

“They told me they did not have the money. But they did not tell me if they were interested in accepting the offer. It was only at 11:30 a.m. that they said they were willing to take it, but by the time the head count of the passengers was in progress and we could not delay the flight,” Wilson said.

“Had they answered in the affirmative in the first place I would have boarded them and cleared the accounts later,” he added.