Fidel Castro’s love for sports           

Fidel Castro was a pioneer in the field of sports in the modern world. As with the Greeks in ancient times, Castro was the first of the contemporary world political leaders who realized the value, the art, the appeal, the enthusiasm and the advantages of sports.

 Under his command, sports became a compulsory subject for every school-going child in a country of nearly 90% literacy. He encouraged the elderly to take part in chess. The modern-day popularity of walks can be traced to his influence.

The best example of his contribution to sports is exemplified by the thrice Olympic gold medal-winning boxer Felix Savon Favre.  Felix was born in Castro’s Cuba, never left the shores of his small island, trained under Cuban coaches and with local facilities. Yet was the undisputed Olympic champion for three consecutive times in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Opponents shuddered to square up to him in the heavy-weight ring. Once after the knock-out punch, he modestly claimed, “Cuba has won, not me.” Similar have been the legendary exploits of numerous Cuban sportsmen under the care of Castro’s regime.

Unfortunately Fidel Castro never received the acknowledgement due to him. The primary reason was that never compromised at the feet of the world powers. His courage and conviction made him an outcaste. The volatile, handsome personality was a singular person, as he had once said, “I prefer being in the majority of one.”

May 1977. London House, the residence of students of School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). My friend Udayan Mukherji and I were in the company of a youth from Cuba. He had left his native land during the revolution and had gone to USA to seek a future for himself. Studied hard, did odd jobs and earned his degree in political science. Now he was well-settled and had come to UK for the first time.

While discussing the Cuban revolution, he kept harping on the influence of sports in his island nation. He kept saying that they were the best in the world at boxing, baseball and basketball. For a student of international relations to have such an exalted opinion of sports drew my attention. Here was someone speaking spontaneously without bothering to create any impression on his listeners.

Now after nearly 40 years, I can vaguely recollect our acquaintance’s name. But I distinctly remember that he mentioned that Teofilo Stevenson was a neighbour of his. That made me still more curious about the man.

 For those who are not into the world of boxing, Teofilo Stevenson was the undisputed Olympic champion in 1972 and 1976 in the heavy weight category. Later in 1980 yet again he had the gold medal around his neck. He happens to be one of the forgotten legends of the Olympic movement. His only fault being that he belonged to the ‘low-profile’ nation of Cuba.

While on Stevenson, it would be an injustice to the outstanding sportsman if his famous quote is not mentioned. Once when asked as to why he did not join the professional ring and make millions fighting Muhammed Ali and company, the man merely shook his head and uttered, “What is a million dollars’ worth compared to the love of eight million Cubans.” He never left his homeland. Shades of our own Dhyan Chand and Tensing Norgay, who refused to earn fame and fortune abroad.

We have digressed. Back to the company of our acquaintance at SOAS. Now qualified and settled, he longed to go back to his motherland. But was apprehensive of how he would be able to resettle in a communist country. Throughout the discussion he was thrilled to find that Udayan and I were quite aware of the overthrow of the dictator Batista, of the Cuban revolution, of Fidel Castro and, of course, our hero of those days, Che Guevara.

Fidel Castro was a statesman with a difference. He had a genuine love and regard for sports and sportspeople. Not the kind of annual cricket jamboree of our parliamentarians at New Delhi. Mao Tse Tung was known to have swam across broad rivers. Many British premiers have played cricket in their school and university days.  But Castro was probably the first to understand the mass appeal of sports. He once claimed that a healthy nation consists of healthy individuals.

 He did not use sports merely as a vehicle of propaganda as East Germany, Soviet Russia and Communist China had done. No, there was a distinct difference. He did not concentrate on elite sports. On the contrary he made physical education compulsory for every primary school child along with academics. Even elderly people were encouraged to take part in indoor games, particularly chess. He believed in competition certainly, but more importantly he wanted his people to take active part in non-competitive contests for the sake of health. The lawyer turned revolutionary turned political leader was certainly way ahead of his times in this respect.

Fidel Castro infused a sense of pride in his countrymen about Cuba’s sports performance at the international level. On the international sports arena he took great delight in the achievements of his fellow men particularly at athletics, boxing, basketball and baseball. According to Robert Huish, professor of international development studies, the deep respect the Cubans have for their sportspersons is reflected in the story relating to Javier Sotomayor.

Javier Sotomayor is an unique sportsperson. He is the only human being to have soared eight feet in the high jump. It is believed that the Cubans marked the height of his jumps in their doorways as he toppled one world record after another. When Alberto Juantorena (400 m and 800 m gold in the 1976 Olympic) galloped around the track, other athletes merely gaped in awe and wonder. Castro’s Cubans had cast a spell on world sports.

No other political leader can match Fidel Castro love and respect for sports. Sports symbolized Cuba’s strength, self respect and pride. How good was he at sports himself? There have been apocryphal stories of Castro’s dexterity at sports. It is said that he was very adept at baseball for he was known to have been pictured with his bat raised. He was also supposed to be an excellent pitcher. But Castro himself revealed the truth, “Never became a champion. Never had the time to practise much.”

Our SOAS acquaintance told us that Fidel Castro’s prime interest as a broad-shouldered, 6-feet-3 was in basketball. The broad-shouldered, 6-feet-3 physique had immense strength, speed in his movements and ability to think fast. Till his last breath he spoke of his love for sports. The outstanding political personality really appreciated the power of sports, which happens to be war without weapons.

Fidel Castro belonging to the unfashionable nation of Cuba never really received the acclaim he deserved. He became a rogue to the world because certain section of the powerful media tarred his image. But his ever-lasting contribution to sports cannot be erased from the annals of sports history. The phenomenal performances of his countrymen have etched his contribution to sports in stone.

 

 

                                      

                                       

 On BCCI’s Birth & Functioning                  

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), situated in the heart of Mumbai, is the Vatican of the Cricket Religion in India. Cricketers of all hues worship at its altar and follow its tenets to the last letter. Wide and deep as its popularity is, the independent institution perpetually highlights that its prime cause is all for India’s national interest.

Since public interest is the prime factor, BCCI officials should not feel upset with the appointment of special auditors as directed by the Supreme Court. In fact, they should actually welcome the presence of external auditors and financial experts to look into their books of accounts. Nothing so sanctimonious about BCCI’s functioning that it cannot come under the Right to Information Act of the country.

As responsible citizens of the nation the BCCI officials should have no qualms in accepting the dictates of the highest arbiter of justice in the land. This is an ideal way for them to show the people of India how honest and sincere they have been in handling public money. This is a great opportunity for them to prove to their critics that they are honest men of exemplary credentials.

BCCI has always been an institution full of very wealthy and influential people. Hopefully we can regard such people to be of unimpeachable integrity as far as financial dealings are concerned. They are responsible citizens of India and are fully aware that the bullions and billions that they deal in every day belong not to their own selves but to those honest lovers of Indian cricket around the globe.

This is a grand opportunity for each and every cricket administrator in India, who invariably works in an honorary capacity, to reveal to the world at large how generous he has been to devote so much of time and attention to cricket for no financial gains. This is an exposure that he should welcome with thanksgiving to whoever he wishes to. An ideal platform to prove that his true intent is all for our delight and the progress of the game.

The name Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is very appropriately coined. Yes, it is a BOARD that is very exclusive; a close-knit brotherhood. It CONTROLS every aspect of CRICKET in INDIA. What a great service this close-knit group is doing for the betterment of cricket in this vast sub-continent of ours.  This board is genuinely united. Hardly ever can they be accused of anything but unanimity. Every association member is ready and willing to oblige the power that holds the reins. No uncomfortable questions are asked; no unnecessary time is lost. Everyone seems to be happy in their own cozy world of dollars and dreams.

Some critics have condemned BCCI for not involving the north-eastern states of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh into the cricket mainstream. But these cynics conveniently forget that the state of Maharashtra was gifted 3 teams (Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Bombay) as was the state of Gujarat (Saurashtra, Baroda and Gujarat). Even Andhra Pradesh has 2 teams (Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh).

Clubs like National Cricket Club and Cricket Club of India, who do not take part in first-class cricket championships, were adequately compensated with voting rights for whatever reasons. Institutional teams like Services, Universities and Railways are also represented. No one can lay the charge that BCCI did not promote cricket. They did. So concerned were they with the huge land mass of the sub-continent that their orbit did not quite reach the obscure corners of India’s north-east.

BCCI, most unfortunately, is still in a dilemma about its place and date of birth. It appears that BCCI has not paid adequate attention to its ancestry while being in pursuit of cricket promotion. Various sources have claimed its origin to be 1928; others have stuck to 1929. Some feel Bombay should be regarded as the birth-place while others opt for Delhi.

The authentic fact, however, is etched in rock that India did not have a cricket board in the summer of 1926 when Reginald Lagden, a former cricketer himself, of Calcutta Cricket Club (CCC) had sent an invitation to Lord Harris of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) through his emissaries – William Currie and Murray Robertson – to send a team to India the following winter.

The main sponsorship and organization came from the Bengal Gymkhana, a conglomeration of local Calcutta clubs which was established in 1909. Later in February 1928 Bengal Gymkhana merged into a full-fledged association, the Cricket Association of Bengal & Assam. Thus CAB came into existence in February 1928, even before the existence of BCCI.

 Former England captain Lord Harris, as a former governor of Bombay Presidency in the 1890s, was well acquainted with the Indian cricket scenario, especially with the pioneering work of CCC. He was a great patron of Indian cricket and an influential man both at MCC and ICC. He welcomed the two CCC members with open arms and confirmed MCC’s tour of India in the winter of 1926 to play several matches including two unofficial tests against an All-India XI.

Although India had no central cricket board at the time, the magnanimous visionary Lord Harris even allowed the two CCC members to sit in the ICC (then Imperial Cricket Conference) deliberations as India’s representatives in the summer of 1926 giving India an exalted position in the cricket hierarchy. Most appropriately, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack regards 1926 to be India’s admission year at ICC.

Lord Harris accepted CCC’s invitation and sent a MCC team under Arthur Gilligan to India in the winter of 1926-27. At the time CCC was a bastion of British expatriates based at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens. CCC along with Bengal Gymkhana, Buchi Babu of Madras, Bombay Gymkhana and various other clubs as well as the princely patrons around the country, most prominent being the Maharaja Bhupindra Singh of Patiala, sponsored and helped to make the MCC tour of 1926-27 a great success. BCCI was yet to be born and obviously had no role in it.

So impressed was the MCC captain Arthur Gilligan –a gentleman of impeccable credentials and vision –with the standard of Indian cricketers and the facilities available in the major cities that he went back and prevailed upon the MCC authorities at Lord’s to involve India in official Test matches without any delay. At the time, apart from Australia and England, teams representing South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand formed the pentagon of Test cricket.

MCC’s 1926-27 visit under Gilligan was an eye-opener to the princely states around the sub-continent. Gilligan broached to them the idea that the country must have a formal board and not be solely reliant on individual donors for all its future cricket programmes. This casual interaction took place at Roshanara Club (named after Aurangzeb’s sister) in Delhi in November 1927 where he met Bhupindra Singh Maharaja of Patiala, Delhi-based businessman RE Grant-Govan and his employee Anthony D’Mello.

The rajas, the zamindars and the nawabs as well as the British businessmen were quick to realize that the game of cricket would help them to come close to the ruling Britons and curry favours. This was the genesis from which began the quest of having a national cricket board.

That same month another informal discussion of some keen cricket lovers of India took place at Delhi, where the prominent cricket centres of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were notable absentees. Present at the Delhi convention were Bhupindra Singh Maharaja of Patiala, Bhopal, Gwalior, Alwar and Baroda. Grant-Govan and D’Mello had organized the meeting.

Following year in April 1928, at Bombay Indian cricket received its first genuine cradle in the formal form of a provisional Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). A meeting was arranged by Grant-Govan and D’Mello to help in drafting the constitution. Alec Hosie, a prominent cricketer, attended on behalf of CCC and CAB which had already come into existence in February 1928. This was a provisional Board, where the following associations were present: Bombay, Madras, Central Provinces, Patiala, Calcutta Cricket Club, Rajinder Gymkhana Patiala, Roshanara Club Delhi and the Kathiawar State.

At this provisional meeting a draft of the constitution was prepared and kept aside for further discussion. It was decided that the headquarters would be at Delhi and at least 10 territorial teams of elected representatives would be required to form a Board.

Later in December 1928 again the cricket representatives met again at Bombay. Only six territorial regions –Bengal, Southern Punjab, Sind, Delhi, Northern India and Madras – with elected representatives were available Although the quorum of a minimum of 10 was not achieved, Grant-Govan and his assistant Anthony D’Mello prevailed upon the available elected representatives to become the first president and secretary of the Board themselves. They readily agreed to make Bombay the headquarters instead of Delhi as per the earlier decision.

The native gymkhanas of Bombay, who had done so much for the progress of Indian cricket in the previous 50 years, did not attend the meeting nor did they send a representative. None from CCC attended this important meeting.

The Board came into being without the presence of people who actually did the groundwork for India’s entry into ICC! The Board was formed without the presence of men who had nursed Indian cricket on the maidans of Bombay for 50 years! An irony, indeed, if ever there was one.

 The Board actually came into being by not following its own rules of having a minimum of 10 founder members! Even today BCCI is uncertain of its actual date of birth. It claims 1928 in some sources, 1929 in others!

 Moreover from the very first day, the Board started its innings with a flawed account. Jockeying for positions reached such proportions that the great patron of Indian cricket, Bhupindra Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala, stayed out of the politicking. Compromises and conspiracies held the upper-hand. Businessmen, politicians, zamindars in the guise of rajas and little-known nawabs came into limelight overnight by virtue of holding posts at the newly formed BCCI.

However, BCCI was extremely fortunate to have had the support of the Viceroy of India, Lord Willingdon. The governor of Bombay, Lord Brabourne, was another who was always ready with all kinds of assistance for the promotion of cricket in India. Both were cricket fanatics and helped Indian cricket in the formative years of the 1930s.  

From the very inception of BCCI, it was fettered by petty considerations and inflated egos. Provincial, communal and class bias were apparent at every step. The fact that Calcutta’s British expatriates had taken the initiative to put India on the ICC map did not go down too well with the people of Delhi or with western States of India, who were the backbone of Indian cricket at the time.

Here it is relevant to point out that the Parsee community leaders of Bombay were very actively engaged in Indian cricket at the time as was Bhupindra Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala. But these men did not wish to canvas or cajole for holding posts in the BCCI. Relishing the opportunity, the busy-body D’Mello (fore-runner to other jugglers years later) got himself nominated as the first secretary and saw to it that his employer Grant-Govan become the first president of BCCI. In utter disgust, Lagden and Hosie of CCC kept themselves aloof from the machinations at work.

In 1932 BCCI was adventurous enough to send a team to England to play India’s first-ever Test. In the winter of 1933-34 an official England team (then MCC) was hosted in India. The first three Tests were held at Bombay Gymkhana, Eden Gardens and Chepauk. At the time the domestic inter-state cricket in India had not started. A communal tournament involving Europeans, Parsees, Hindus and Muslims was organized under the nomenclature of Quadrangular Tournament at Bombay and Poona.

 Initially the members of BCCI were from the presidency regions and from princely states. With every advancing year since its inception in 1929, BCCI made gains in terms of numbers. Gradually the other political and institutional entities began to infiltrate into the cricket mainstream. By 1934, BCCI was strong enough in terms of numerical strength and funds to commence its first cricket tournament at the all-India level. That was the beginning of the Ranji Trophy, when the actual trophy was donated by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupindra Singh, in memory of the legendary England batsman of Indian birth, Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar.

Ironically Cricket Association of Bengal & Assam, which happens to be the first cricket association to be formed in the country in 1928, did not take part in the inaugural year of Ranji Trophy in 1934-35.Central India, Central Provinces & Berar, Northern India, Army, United Provinces, Delhi, Southern Punjab, Madras, Mysore, Hyderabad, Western India, Sind, Bombay, Gujarat and Maharashtra took part in the first season.

Madras and Mysore played the opening match on a rain-affected pitch which was over in one day! Bombay went on win the knock-out championship, a feature they were to continue with dreary routine. Bombay’s domination of Indian cricket began from the very first day.

With the independence of the nation, the abolition of princely states, the reorganization of state boundaries and the advent of newly-named states the membership of BCCI has undergone huge transformations over the years. Holkar and Nawanagar, two prime princely provinces which gave steel to the foundation of BCCI in the early days of 1930s, had to forego their pre-eminent status. Rajputana was similarly affected. As were Kathiawar and Travancore-Cochin. Baroda and Hyderabad, however, survived.

The situation became progressively complex and confusing. Whereas England had inter-county, Australia had inter-state and West Indies inter-island, in India as with Pakistan the first-class environment had no definite distinction. Names like Berar, Central Provinces vanished into thin air. Vidarbha and Saurashtra, although not states, came into reckoning. Institutional teams came into limelight. In time Assam left Bengal while Bihar and Orissa created their own associations. Tripura followed much later in the 1980s. Later Jharkhand and now Chattisgarh are in the broad picture.

To prove its worth and worthy credentials, the present-day BCC administrators should be happy that the Supreme Court has taken the initiative to put the system within a logical framework. BCCI, which has done wonders for cricket in India, should be relieved to lay bare its accounts to the special auditors appointed under SC orders for at least 30 years when ‘big money’ began to flow into Indian cricket from the mid 1980s. Why should one hesitate when there is nothing to hide? Why resort to delaying tactics and create suspicions about one’s credibility?

 States which have utilized the funds from the BCCI coffers for the promotion of the game would be delighted to present their dusty ledgers to the powers-that-be. States which organize nurseries, tournaments and camps at the district, school and college levels would be proud to show off their achievements. States which have developed grounds and stadia would be very comfortable with their new-found status. States which promote women’s cricket would be happy to reveal their figures. States which have honorarium, pension and medical insurance schemes for their senior players would be glad to bask in the limelight.

 Worthy cricket administrators of integrity would walk with their head held high. The nation would salute them for their magnificent selfless service for the cause of cricket. Since one is innocent, why should one worry about the morrow?

Let BCCI’s books of accounts and financial dealings be an open book for the world of sport to follow. Let BCCI’s transparency be a role model for the corruption-filled world of modern sports.