Patriotic Gavaskar tells it like it is

Okay, just who are the paranoid ones here? Is it the Western media or the International Cricket Council and its non-South Asian minions? Or is it the many brown sahibs still living in reflected glory of the days of the Raj?

Just maybe, had anyone else other than did Sunil Gavaskar in this case – such as Kapil Dev or fellow columnist Sandeep Patil - called a spade a shovel and referred to those former ICC masters England and Australia as dinosaurs, the episode would have been brushed over.

Gavaskar has long been known as a erudite and skilled author and comments man behind the mike or on television. Sure he has a sharp tongue and makes his points known.

Anyone who has read, as an example, his first book 'Sunny Days,' would have quickly picked up this trend. He was as prolific and challenging as a batsman as he now is as a writer.

But this does not suggest in anyway that his media work influences his role as chairman of the ICC's cricket committee. That as he sees it, his media role is to point out the anomalies of what he sees and feels about the game. The position on the cricket committee is different as it is designed to improve the way the game is played and work within those parameters.

In the case of Harbhajan Singh and the charges he faced he was thinking too of his own patriotism; there is nothing wrong with being loyal at a time when in general the Australian media were, in a sense, gunning for Bhajji.

This is where Gavaskar felt there was a need to show his support for the player in this case and if the charge is one of nationalism, there are many at which fingers can be pointed. There is also the fine line of balance between comment and criticism and outright condemnation.

In the article referring to Mike Procter and his handling of the Harbhajan issue over charges of referring to another player as a 'monkey', Gavaskar is critical of the decision, but doesn't refer to Procter in racist terms. He also denies the charge.

To be honest, the ICC is still hidebound as well as haunted at times by a legacy that is on the verge of turning 100 years old. For this you cannot blame the present council's officials but the umbilical cord from which it was given life.

Millionaire and a former Transvaal bowler Sir Abe Bailey, whose idea it was to form an international body, did so in 1908 when England, Australia and South Africa were the only constituent nations playing the game at international level. The ICC was formed a year later.

What is not well known is how on enquiry the United States were refused membership. They were still a force in the game through their Philadelphia links and refusal was a deliberate slap in the face as the old imperial (Raj) forces were at work here, not the genuine benefactors.

Granting membership to the USA would have meant a non-British Commonwealth nation being involved and admitted to this collection of nations.

Now, as England and South Africa were financially wealthier at the time than the more upfront Australians, the terms imperial and conference sounded far better than international and council. There was a misguided feeling too that the Yanks would act in such an iconoclastic way they would take over the running of the game.