The Great Game Called Cricket...

Calcutta: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s zone-wise grounds and pitches committee, disbanded hours after Sunday’s fiasco at the Kotla, may not ever again be revived.

“As far as I know, we don’t have plans to reconstitute it... I guess we’ve all realised it was a farce and there’s no point going through a farcical cycle one more time,” a senior BCCI official told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

The official added: “The zonal head would visit the centre staging an international match just two days before the game... Anybody who knows even a bit about wickets will understand that nothing can be done in the last two days... A farce used to be enacted and shouldn’t start all over again...”

Apparently, most of the state associations pay their maalis (who do all the hard work) as little as Rs 3,000 per month and the lack of recognition from any quarter has actually led to a demoralised lot.

In fact, during Prasun Mukherjee’s regime at the Cricket Association of Bengal, in 2007-08, the maalis had even threatened to commit suicide!

“One can’t understand why most of our affiliated units, who make so much money, are reluctant to look after the men who’re responsible for the upkeep of the grounds and the preparation of pitches... The BCCI may have to intervene,” the official pointed out.

According to the official, the BCCI is quite cut up with former India opener and current Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) vice-president Chetan Chauhan for his comments on a TV channel.

Speaking on Monday, Chauhan, who’d been the head of the DDCA’s own grounds and pitches committee, said: “The Match Referee (Alan Hurst) told me unofficially that one side did not want to carry on and he could not force them... The Sri Lankans chickened out.”

“We’re upset with Chauhan’s observations... He should, instead, be accepting that the DDCA made a mess and moving on from there... What face has he left to show after Gautam Gambhir’s ‘the match should have been called off earlier’ remark (during a promotional) on Tuesday? Chauhan isn’t helping the DDCA and the BCCI,” the official maintained.

Harbhajan Singh rubbed it in even more, on Wednesday, by saying: “...The decision to call off the game was right.”

The fifth and final ODI, between India and Sri Lanka, was abandoned in the 24th over and Hurst, in his report to the International Cricket Council (ICC), has rated the pitch as “unfit.”

If the rulebook is followed strictly, then the Kotla faces a ban of between 12 and 24 months. The BCCI, though, is well known for using its clout.

For now, the BCCI is waiting for the DDCA to give its side of the story. Once that internal communication is received, it will prepare its own defence and place it before the ICC, which has sought an explanation.

On Monday, the ICC gave the BCCI 14 days to reply.