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[Zacked]

Player power: Don’t mess with us

The Seniors Have Always Dictated Terms In Indian Cricket

Sumit Mukherjee | TNN

Kolkata: If the world’s largest democracy is fuelled by people’s power, Indian cricket runs on hioctane player power. However, while people’s power is known to vote political parties out of office, player-power, irrespective of the team’s performance, always prevails.
   Board officials may come and go as do selectors, but not the players, especially the seniors who dictate terms in the team. It’s not a players’ union — that’s not the style in the subcontinent — but a marriage of convenience. Indian cricketers are happy to follow their own personal agendas while sharing the same dressing room.
   Newcomers, or youngsters in the team are either mute spectators to seniors’ dadagiri, or at the receiving end of it. According to sources in Port-of-Spain, a junior player was asked to “f *** off” by a senior pacer when the former went out with a bottle of water to offer to the bowler, who was fielding near the boundary line during one of the Group B matches.
This junior player, who was ‘shattered’ by his senior’s attitude and language, beat a hasty retreat.
   The senior pacer went on to play all the three matches while the junior continues to sit out and sulk, wondering whether he will ever get a chance to do unto his juniors what his seniors did unto him.
   It’s unlikely that this incident will find a mention in manager Sanjay Jagdale’s report to the BCCI, for no one wants to upset the players’ lobby which rules the roost in Indian cricket. You can hardly blame Jagdale, who is also a selector, if he fails to mention in his report all such incidents that added up to India’s disastrous World Cup campaign. There is simply no point because the BCCI too is not known to act on it.
   Had the BCCI acted on manager Chetan Desai’s report after the Indian team’s return from South Africa, the shame in the Caribbean could have been avoided. Instead, his report was leaked to the media, to cause all-round embarrassment. Though an internal inquiry was ordered by the BCCI president, the culprit will never be known, just as no one is aware of who had leaked Greg Chappell’s email.
   Desai, who is the secretary of the Goa Cricket Association, was publicly humiliated by skipper Rahul Dravid, who instead of addressing the issues raised by the manager, questioned his standing in India’s cricket history. It’s a different matter that Dravid ‘made up’ with Desai when the Indian team played in Goa against Sri Lanka.
   In the given scenario, the BCCI’s ‘World Cup review’ meeting on April 6-7 in Mumbai is likely to be an exercise in futility, where officials are likely to go through Jagdale and Chappell’s reports before mulling on critical issues such as appointment of Team India coach, the future of senior players who are well past their prime and a hard look at the role of the selectors, who are as reluctant to tangle with players as a first-timer at a swimming pool.
   So expect nothing more than cosmetic changes that could begin and end with sacking the coach. At most, a couple of seniors could also be axed.
   Bangladesh would sure fancy their chances against a team full of players whose pride has long been gobbled up by greed. 
 

[LosingNow]

If the bolded part is true.. it really is pathetic. [Is the senior bowler AA ..and the junior KKD?]

[Zacked]

i think so!!!!

[RicePlateReddy]

seniors’ dadagiri

Dangerous word to use!

I don't believe this report one bit, BTW. If as an Australian, I read this report, I'd ask Gavaskar to conentrate on the within team communication first 

[Libran]

Here is my take on this...

The Bowler could have been ZK or AA...more likely AA ...and the "junior" could have been KKD...I don't think SS or IKP ever bothered to carry drinks to the boundary line...

And why could this have happened....

If KKD was coming to the bowler with a 'message' in the bottle ...either his own advice(unsolicited) or from the dressing room...and if immediately after a mauling in the previous over, it is a natural reaction from the bowler..And from what I have seen and heard of cricketers from TN...they just can't keep their mouths shut...and link this back to Chappell's surreptious SMS to the Deccan Chronicle reporter, there is bound to have been some kind of importance given to KKD by the coach and his croonies...and resisted by some of the lesser mortals

From all aspects, this Indian team is not "ONE"....  and the Coach has played his role to the T...Divide and Rule...what he had attributed to the former captain is actually his own strength which he has so cunningly used to break "OUR TEAM INDIA" 

Oh...and if the message was from our Bowling Coach Mr Frazier...the term used by the senior bowler should have been conveyed back to the bowling coach by the 'junior' instead of sitting in a corner and sulking

[Blwe_torch]

I think, nothing wrong here. This kind of senior-junior relations exists everywhere. No point feeling scandalized by one 'f*** off'.

[dextrous]

I think, nothing wrong here. This kind of senior-junior relations exists everywhere. No point feeling scandalized by one 'f*** off'.

yes, just ask dhruv how we treat him 

[Blwe_torch]

I think, nothing wrong here. This kind of senior-junior relations exists everywhere. No point feeling scandalized by one 'f*** off'.

yes, just ask dhruv how we treat him 

btw...I saw Dhruv in the line-up of interviewees by Miss Nagrani on TV. He was the shortest in the group, I guess of spectators visiting Port of Spain. I could recognize him by his hair and that, he said he was from Bangalore, when asked.
Dhruv plz confirm!

[dhruvdeepak]

If the bolded part is true.. it really is pathetic. [Is the senior bowler AA ..and the junior KKD?]

KKD was on the field subbing more than he was off it. it was Sreesanth who was always touring the boundary offering drinks to Zak and AA

[dhruvdeepak]

I think, nothing wrong here. This kind of senior-junior relations exists everywhere. No point feeling scandalized by one 'f*** off'.

yes, just ask dhruv how we treat him 

btw...I saw Dhruv in the line-up of interviewees by Miss Nagrani on TV. He was the shortest in the group, I guess of spectators visiting Port of Spain. I could recognize him by his hair and that, he said he was from Bangalore, when asked.
Dhruv plz confirm!

yay for Shonali!! she got us on tv. i quote Nagrani: "These are my boys! i must interview them!" (this was after we met her a day before in Tobago, and they filmed us playing cricket with her and the rest of her crew)
i guess they cut out the part where we gave a message to the Indian public?