Blog Posts by Sanjay Dixit

The outrage with which former players have received the defeat of Dilip Vengsarkar has once again revived the old debate - should the Sports Associations be exclusively reserved for the former players? Though Dilip has taken it sportingly but some of the comments from former players have been interesting to say the least.

This is not a legal question, not even an ethical one. This question is one of domain knowledge of the game. The presumption is that the domain knowledge of the game best inheres in a former player. The bigger the level that a player has represented, the better his knowledge of the game.

The question is whether it is enough to have played the game at the highest level to run an Association. Allied to that is the question whether it is enough to have run a ministry to be able to run a sports association. I have carefully heard the arguments on both sides. The extreme point of view of course came from Bishen Singh Bedi who termed Mumbai cricket as a loser due

An ODI in Jaipur. Suddenly the air-conditioning of the VIP areas and the players' area goes off. Throws everyone into a tizzy. It is then discovered that a panel has been made to malfunction by a PWD engineer upset at not being given the category of complimentary passes he had hoped to get. We mollify him (with a few passes of course). Air-conditioning is restored.

6 hours to go before an ODI in Jaipur. Suddenly the water supply is cut off. There is frenetic running around by the staff. It is discovered that a major line has been broken. Takes a herculean effort to repair it before the game. It transpires that disgruntled Sports Council staff had done it on purpose. Reason: They had got only 400 passes instead of the 1000 they demanded.

In another match, orgnisers in Jaipur found the gutters overflowing on the night previous to match day. Reason was not difficult to fathom. Municipal Corporation was showing its nuisance value. 200 complimentary passes did the trick.

In an IPL

On his last day in Jaipur, Warnie looked a forlorn soul. He did not
do his handshake with the presentation party members as he would
normally do, and 15 minutes after the presentation had an altercation
with me for not being given the pitch and the pitch preparation that he
wanted.

This was the ugly side of a master cricketer who
was an absolute tormentor of batsmen of his generation, and sent
shudders up many a spine. In a format like T20, batsmen preferred to see
his 4 overs off without incident. The success of the great Australian
side under Mark Taylor, Waugh, and Ponting had Warne as a key factor.
Except Indians, he defeated batsmen of every country with his
mesmerizing brand of spin and was largely responsible, along with Anil
Kumble, for revival of leg spin as a potent force in international
cricket.

On the field, he was an absorbed, passionate
maestro, a complete cricketer who could fool the best of batsmen. He was
a feisty fighter, fiercely competitive on the field, but

The IPL is into its second week. We are already having an overdose of preaching from the pulpits of coaching Gurus of various teams on their preparations and their secret strategies. Though I did express my intention to deal with both the short term and long term preparations, I have decided to concentrate on the more foundational part and leave the short term to the Gurus pontificating from the coaching manuals.

As distinct from preparation for the game ahead, the preparation for the season and preparation for the long term development of the game requires Cricket administrators exercising their vision with the help of experts, much in the manner of a political leadership framing policies for a country and implementing them with the help of experts and bureaucrats.

It has been said over the years that 'a minute spent in organizing saves hours'. One could say that it is only a truism but nowhere is it more truly exercised than on the cricket field. Here it is not saving hours which