On Friday afternoon, Anurag Thakur, former BCCI president, tweeted about women's cricket in North East. “U-19 Womens Cricket 136 Wides (94 by Manipur Vs 42 by Nagaland), Low Score 2 (1 on wide ball) runs by Nagaland.” He then sent out a bigger-picture tweet out: “Giving full voting rights to each state w/out structured development of cricketing standards will harm the game. Cricket in northeast needs nurturing not humiliation like this. #LodhaReforms @BCCI” This was in reference to Friday's U-19 women’s one-day game where Nagaland scored 2 runs from 17 overs and nine of their batters got out for duck. Kerala won by scoring 5/0 in 0.1 overs. Back in Imphal, Priayananda Singam, secretary of Manipur Cricket Association (MCA), isn't convinced. “Why do we need one-state one-vote? It will allow us to play in more tournaments, bring much-needed funds to develop cricket in infrastructure, and give us a voice in way cricket is run. How can anyone link a one-off performance to voting? That too without knowing the background story. The girls played serious cricket sometime last decade. We are trying to revive it now.” In the first week of October, during the U-17 football world cup, The Indian Express visited Imphal to get a sense of football mania as the tiny state had sent eight players to the Indian squad. In a corner of football town, cricket was still trying its best to breathe. MCA had just a month to prepare for girls tournament – there wasn't time, there wasn't a team yet, but there was dream in the air. In their minds, it was start of the revival of girls' cricket – performance wasn't the goal but an event to kickstart interest. 7.30 am in Imphal. Singam keeps looking at the rusty gate of Luwangpokpa ground. Wild grass has mushroomed all around – not a surprise considering heavy rains had almost blown away the national highway to Dimapur. Singam is waiting for the girls to come for practice. They didn't even have a team then. They were hunting for girls to form one when Singam had a brain wave. Why not try to lure hockey and boxing players to start playing cricket? “I went to the hockey matches, and tried to spot and talk to girls who might be interested in playing cricket.” However, there was a problem. How do you spot talent? “Well, goalkeeper to start with! Then you just go with your feel, and ask around. I tell them, if you play hockey, you have to go by road or train, if you do well in cricket, we can take you in flight in the future.” And so, the curiosity peeked as the girls started to troop in that October morning — the hockey girls, boxing girls and some who play cricket. A coach takes them into the arena, and gives a lengthy pep-talk, and tells them some basic rules of the game. Then the action begins. They are lined up in a queue – the coach hits the ball out, and the girls run, pick up, turn and throw. Some managed to ping the gloves, others threw it far out, some didn't have the strength to bridge the distance. Patiently, the coach continued to explain how to throw, how to line-up the arms, and how to take aim. Inside, in a dusty long warehouse like room, a paper is stuck on the wall at the far end. Vertical lines run across a circle, inside which is nestled a small circle with a centered dot. “For aim,” a girl says. This is where they learn to bowl. Work in progress The ground is itself unkempt as the work to construct a few rooms for offices for cricket association was about to begin. The state government had pitched in with the funds to build a few rooms, and the work is expected to be done by December. And episodes like wides and all-out for 2, Singam fears, will recur if they don't get a voice in cricket in the country. “We don't get to play tournaments. Our Manipur boys team is good- we win in the North East tournaments. But we play few and far between. How will we ever improve?” The boys get to play in U-16 and U-23 tournaments. For u-19, the six states in North East, and Bihar, combine to form one team. “That's it. No other representative cricket.” The fear is what will happen to Manipur men if they play Ranji Trophy. Won't more humiliation await them? “A idea we have proposed to BCCI is that to have a tier-structured. At the bottom group, if we can get all the North East teams and Bihar to play first-class, and perhaps the best or two teams can then be elevated to something like Plate league? Can't a nation where cricket is so mad, invest in our youth?” There are 5 active districts who play cricket, and about couple of dozen clubs associated with the association. Without funds, though, not much local cricket is organised. It's MCA who tries to conduct cricket. “We have to re-organise our district cricket. We have five A-level coaches, and 9 O-level coaches.” The plans are ambitious, though. In Manipur, where sports offer a way out for kids, Singam reckons he can crack the cricket puzzle. “We plan to have school-academies, where education can be subsidised and the young kids can be developed. For that we need funds, of course. Last time BCCI gave us money was 50 lakhs in 2009. Nothing after that.” What if they don't get one-state one-vote, but are supported with funds and infrastructural help? “How do you think that's going to happen? We would be exactly where we are now. That's the state of affairs now – without recognition, and with some token help, how would cricket flourish here? What's the guarantee that things will improve?”
