Cricket and politics do not mix. The biggest clich? of all. Just to recreate the events of January 28: To ensure that Eden Gardens gets back the India-England World Cup game, the chief minister of West Bengal intervened and called ICC President Sharad Pawar.
It is known in India?s political circles that the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee shares a good rapport with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. It is this rapport that he used to call his political colleague, who, in this case happened to be the president of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Pawar in turn reciprocated by extending an olive branch to his political comrade and suggested he would do his best in trying to allow Eden Gardens the much needed extension of seven days.
That he wasn?t able to do so is a different matter altogether. Even the team the West Bengal CM had assembled to meet Pawar included two of his ministers besides former India captain Saurav Ganguly. Curiously, there was no Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) functionary in this team.
If this was one side of the story, the other side saw the CAB President Jagmohan Dalmiya rush to his long time friend and advisor, and one of India?s most respectable politicians Pranab Mukherjee. The plan was simple. Through Mukherjee the issue would be taken up at the highest echelons of political power at the centre and pressure put on Sharad Pawar to act and give CAB the necessary extension.
While there?s no debate that the ICC, while giving 14 further days to Wankhede and Hambantota could have done the same with Eden. There?s no denying the fact that it is a clear case of administrative laxity that the situation has come to such a pass.
In the interest of the ICC, however, it needed to be flexible. While the professionals in the ICC had every reason to feel peeved if the match returned to Eden Gardens, they have little knowledge of the state of cricket?s well being. The format of this World Cup is hugely problematic and the International Cricket Council needs Eden Gardens as much as the CAB needs the game, something they failed to comprehend.
There?s little doubt that half the games in the first phase of the competition will find it hard to attract crowds. It is impossible to expect that spectators will go to the stadiums in droves to watch matches involving Kenya, Holland, Canada or Ireland.
In such a situation you need cities and stadiums which are exceptions to this rule and will embrace any and every match. Eden Gardens was/is the ICC?s best bet. If the India-England match had returned to Kolkata, the kind of hype it would have generated would have gone a long way to ensuring the World Cup got off to the start it so badly needs. Just like teams, the tournament too needs the momentum to move forward as a commercial success. And the cricket crazy city of Kolkata was one of the safest options to bank on.
ICC, we must agree, is no FIFA. Cricket is in half the health football is in, and the Indian market is the game?s only lifeline. Especially for the 50 over game, which is facing a crisis of existence. In such a situation it was imperative that the ICC understood where it needed to bend rules, where it might have done well to accommodate administrative laxity and allow for some extra days. Not once am I claiming they should have released pressure on CAB.
At every step they should have been made to realise that their failure to get the stadium ready on time could have cost them dear. But keeping in mind the health of the World Cup, the kind of support that Eden Gardens could have brought to the table, the important issue of national interest, the sports loving public of the city of Kolkata and finally the commercial bonanza Kolkata could offer, the ICC may well have thought of revoking its earlier decision and giving back Kolkata the match that it was so looking forward to watching.
Such a gesture would have surely struck an emotional chord with Indian cricket fans and given the World Cup a lot of good press in the lead up to the competition.
?The writer is a sports historian