Paternity leave: Indian cricket’s obsession with superstar cult

Dubai - The BCCI is known to actively encourage moral aphorism: different strokes for different folks

Does the Indian cricket team believe in first among equals? Well, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), an autonomous and the most cash-rich cricket board in the world, which is beyond even the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, appears to be a fountainhead for nurturing a superstar cult.

The BCCI is known to actively encourage moral aphorism: different strokes for different folks.

Let’s rewind to 1976. The Indian cricket team was on a tour of the West Indies.

Sunil Gavaskar, who was India’s best Test batsman at that point in time, was anxiously waiting for the birth of his child.

However, when Rohan was born, Gavaskar didn’t fly back to Mumbai in the middle of a lopsided tour, where the West Indies, then the best side in the world, was pummelling the hapless Indians at will.

And Gavaskar was the proverbial rock between Clive Lloyd’s team, which was immortalised in a 2010 British documentary, Fire in Babylon, about the record-breaking Caribbean outfit and India’s drubbing.

Gavaskar scored a century in the second Test. He made a game-changer 102 in the third Test in Trinidad, which proved to be the foundation for India to chase down a record 406 runs in the second innings.

Four decades on, Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli has hit the sweet spot, as he has got the BCCI’s nod to be by the side of his significant other, Anushka Sharma, who is expecting their first child.

The BCCI has come full circle and allowed Kohli to fly back despite Indian cricket’s lowest Test total of 36/9 at Adelaide Oval in their ongoing tour in Down Under last week.

In his latest column in the weekly Sportstar that has triggered an online debate, Gavaskar has touched a raw nerve. He has uncovered the BCCI’s hypocrisy and questioned the board’s alleged partisan approach.

The BCCI granted Kohli’s paternity leave plea but pace bowler T Natarajan did not get paternity leave during the latest edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

“Another player who will wonder about the rules, but, of course, can’t make any noise about it as he is a newcomer. It is T Natarajan. The left-arm yorker specialist who made an impressive debut in T20...had become a father for the first time as the IPL playoffs were going on,” Gavaskar wrote.

“He was taken to Australia directly from UAE and then looking at his brilliant performances, he was asked to stay on for the Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that. A match-winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler. He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child.”

Gavaskar has raised a question that has opened a can of worms. Two years ago, Rohit Sharma was also allowed to miss a Test in Australia to be with his newborn child.

Gavaskar’s pertinent point lays bare the BCCI’s subservience to the superstar cult in Indian cricket. Earlier, Test cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar had explained in his 2018 autobiography, Imperfect, how the BCCI is beholden to the superstardom culture.

The BCCI’s handling of ‘untenable conditions’ that led to Kohli’s spat with the then coach Anil Kumble blew the cover of Indian captain’s vice-like grip on a grovelling BCCI.

Historian and scholar Ramachandra Guha, who had by then quit the Supreme Court (SC)-monitored Committee of Administrators (CoA) to oversee the BCCI’s affairs, had warned against the cult of the superstar that was a marked departure from best governing practices.

Paternity leave is a one-size-fits-all policy, which is availed by other international cricketers from Australia, England and South Africa, irrespective of their superstar status. But exception to the rule, as in Kohli’s case, needs to be called out, which Gavaskar has done in his consummate style of playing with a straight bat and packing a lethal punch.

Kohli’s inconsistent captaincy such as the horrible selection for the first Test is also under scrutiny.

For instance, India chose Prithvi Shaw as the opener in the first Test against Australia at Adelaide Oval. However, Shaw was all at sea during the latest edition of the IPL.

The BCCI’s below-par conduct shows that inconsistency is the board’s second name.

The BCCI has chosen to confer upon the demi-god honour on Kohli. Be that as it may, Natarajan has been passed over.

Demi-god and mortals vying for India’s honour in a cricket team is akin to a divided house that Gavskar has alluded to in his column. And look no further than last week’s Adelaide Oval for the disastrous consequence. It’s high time for the BCCI to learn its lessons and do a course correction.

Hope springs eternal, as India heads to the second Test on Saturday against Australia. Hopefully 2020 -- one of the worst years for humanity — will be behind us and the BCCI will shed its superstar baggage in the New Year.