A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

India Today has come up with a list of the 10 biggest controversies in Indian sports. I agree with most of them but there are a few that we don’t find worthy of this list. I think somewhere there was a predisposition towards the controversies that had been well covered by the magazine. Never mind. We decided to come up with a list of 10 other important controversies from Indian sports, some of which were worthy of being in the first list itself.

Here goes in no particular order.

What gender did it bring more shame to?

The girl who was a guy

This was completely bizarre – so much so that it found a mention on ESPN’s US website. Santhi Sounderajan won a silver medal at the 2006 Doha Asian Games and then failed a gender test. She was found to be missing the sexual characteristics of a woman. The medal had to be returned and this incident brought us shame and disrepute. Things like this were common in the 1930’s and 40’s but there is excuse for something like this happening in today’s times. The government in the athlete’s home state of Tamil Nadu added to the controversy by refusing to recognize the verdict and felicitating the athlete in the same manner as the other medal-winners.

Kerry Packer revisited -The ICL controversy

This one has a strong case to be in the India Today list. Subhash Chandra emulated Kerry Packer by setting up his own cricket league after losing out on the broadcast rights, in spite of having the highest bid. The broadcast bidding is quite a controversy in itself. The BCCI wasn’t ready to play along –they banned the League and all its stakeholders and then upped the ante by starting a far bigger league of their own. Since then the BCCI and the Zee group have been at war and have sucked the entire cricket world into their dispute. The controversy looks like dragging on forever with both parties engaged in a war of attrition and there being no resolution to the matter in sight.

The monkey and the ugly Australians

This one surely had to be in the India Today list. It almost caused India to withdraw from the series and led to a public outcry against the Australian cricket team. The events leading up to it were truly inflammable – first the Aussies took gamesmanship to a new level and then rubbed salt into India’s wounds by accusing Harbhajan Singh of racism. It almost became a case of the white man’s word against the brown man’s. Insults were traded between the two sides and matters had almost come to a point of no return. Thankfully India was captained by an honourable man in Anil Kumble who got together with Ponting to iron out the issues between the two sides.

There is blood on their hands

The sportsman’s widow and her lover

Almost 20 years ago, one of India’s best badminton players, Syed Modi was shot dead by unknown assassins. His badminton playing wife, Amita, was rumoured to be having an extra-marital affair with noted politician and much married father of two children Sanjay Singh. A case was lodged against Sanjay for arranging  the killing but as it happens in our country, the well-connected politician, also a royal and a close friend of the Gandhi family, got away scot-free. A little later Sanjay divorced his first wife and married Amita. There are no witnesses and no legal proof – Just a simple matter of putting two and two together.

The cricketing god and his free chariot

Another one which India Today totally missed. India’s biggest cricket icon was gifted a Ferrari car by his sponsors FIAT on equalling Don Bradman’s record of 29 centuries. It was a 75 lakhs rupee gift but there was also the small matter of paying the customs duty of 1.15 crores. The controversy started after it was reported that the batting maestro had requested a custom duty waiver on the car despite getting it as a gift and not winning it as a prize in any tournament. That he was well capable of paying for it added to the steam and matters came to a boil when the Union government decide to oblige. There was a hue and a cry and Tendulkar’s demigod status took a hit. Finally FIAT decided to end the controversy by picking up the tab.

Indian hockey – of what happened after the Olympic failure

The qualification failure is already in the first list. But what happened after makes for a far bigger storm. The union sports minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer shed crocodile tears but failed to take any action citing the Olympic charter (which calls for autonomy of sports bodies). Thankfully, he was replaced by M.S Gill who showed more gumption by sacking the IHF chief. Then the IHF secretary was caught accepting a bribe on camera and he was also duly removed from his post. An ad hoc body was put in place but soon the power battle begun with the likes of Sahara’s JB Roy mobilizing the support of the state bodies. Ex- chief KPS Gill also refuses to let go and keeps sabotaging the activities of the ad-hoc body. And the former secretary is now flexing his muscles in his home state’s association by setting up a parallel body with the support of the district chiefs. This one also continues to rage on

All the good work undoes the Mary Kom episode

When the champion of rights was the perpetrator himself

Milkha Singh has always trodden on a moral high ground and never shies away from speaking his mind – mostly it has to do with the government’s apathy and disrespect towards non-cricketing sports and sportspersons. He caused a furore by refusing the Arjuna Award and makes the India today list based on that controversy. And then the same gentleman, in his capacity as the chairman of the Arjuna Awards selection committee, strikes of the name of female boxer MC Mary Kom from the Khel Ratna award list. His excuse – he didn’t know which sport she competed in. Where does that rate on the scale of hypocrisy? The World Champion boxer was hurt and aggrieved at the ‘Flying Sikh’s’ lack of respect and complete ignorance. For the record, she has 4 World Championship crowns, which is 4 more than what Milkha Singh has.

The over-age controversy

This controversy raises its ugly head every time we participate in a junior event, especially in cricket, football, hockey and athletics. The most famous or rather most infamous instances are the times when we won the junior hockey world cup and finished runners-up. Numerous complaints have been registered against us but we are so driven in our efforts to capture glory at the junior events that we continue to court controversy and infamy. If only we had the same drive to win things the right way

The other cricket controversies

There are three other cricket controversies which deserve an equal mention. First the ban on Sehwag for excessiveappealing in South Africa which led to a protest by the Indian side and the final test had to be played as an unofficial one. Second is the Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth episode which remains the gold standard on how things should be brushed under the carpet. And finally the Vengsarkar – Ganguly fracas, where Ganguly claimed to have been unjustifiably dropped after a good season and the former chairman of selectors promised to explain his act and give Dada more than what he had bargained for. This event caused, as many Dada fans would claim, Sourav Ganguly to make an early exit from the game. As for Mr. Vengsarkar, we are still waiting for his reply. But as it happens in Indian cricket, a few wins and everything is forgotten.

Wardrobe malfunction?

Sania Mirza and the Beijing Olympics

Another case of a victim in the ‘India Today’ list switching roles. Sania Mirza’s mom caused a major storm when she was accommodated in the Indian contingent for the Beijing Olympics as one of the officials of the tennis squad. She was not accommodated as a one member cheering squad but as one of the coaches and her inclusion was at the cost of dropping a ‘real’ coach in Rick Leach and a couple of physios, including South African Heath Mathews, whose eventual inclusion in the squad played a crucial role in the outstanding performance of the Indian boxers. And that was not all. Sania Mirza then turned up wearing trainers and not the official uniform for the opening ceremony. Some claimed she didn’t know how to wrap a saree and the official word was that she didn’t get time as she was trying to get in some additional practise. Whatever it was, it didn’t make for a pretty picture as the Indian contingent marched in and obviously the country was incensed.

Shane Warne finally has something positive to show for his colourful life – a musical based on his adventure-packed life. The musical has been well received and even the portly spinner has managed a few laughs at his own expense – he’s always been a good sport. The film-making aspects have got a lot of favourable reviews but it’s undeniable that a lot of the success of the musical has to be attributed to the story itself.

That also raises the interesting prospect – that cricket has some more musicals to offer. After all, there is no shortage of lively characters with interesting tales. So let’s look at some other storylines which could definitely set the box-office on fire.

First a disclaimer – These musicals may or may, in full or in parts, have a striking resemblance to characters dead or alive. Such similarities are purely coincidental.

Vinod Kambli – Till the interval, we see a classic ‘rags –to- riches’ story, with a ‘Yeh Dosti’ song thrown in with Sachin Tendulkar. Then fame gets to his head, he starts wearing too much jewellery and ends up losing his wife and his job. He then starts a second innings in the movies, unsuccessfully trying his hand at singing and acting. This will give us enough scope, though, to add lots of songs and dances in the musical. Then when all seems lost, our hero emerges with a super hot wife in tow and then sets another record. He slaps every person who whistles or comments on his wife and ends up scoring 10,000 in double quick time. There is a final scene where Kambli and Sachin come together and cut a cake in the shape of ‘10,000’ together. I can think of three names for this one – 1) Meri Biwi Ka Jawab Nahin 2) Desi Babu English Mem and 3) Bandar Ke Sir Par Chameli Ka Tel. And there are no casting issues with the failed actor and model wife totally available to play themselves on screen.

Beauty and the bum

Imran Khan – This tale of a cricket playing Casanova is actually the most obvious one to make – sadly Shakespeare and Neville Cardus are not around to jointly script it. It will have to be made in English as ‘Romeo goes to Lords’ and in Hindi/Urdu as ‘Sabse Bada Khiladi’, pun intended. The producer will need to get all the participants from the Miss World contest to complete the casting. There will be one song and dance sequence with Imran playing cricket with 21 other women, 2 lady umpires, an all women ground staff and 20,000 women watching. The musical could be released on Women’s Day – after all it is about one man’s life- long passion for loving women. This musical would have helped Imran with the lady voters, but I don’t think the Taliban will allow its screening in Pakistan.

Mohd Azharuddin – A little creative liberty will make this script a sure shot winner. Azhar has a happily married life and Sangeeta is going steady with Salman. Then Azhar gets banned for match-fixing –and some local rowdy tattoos ‘Mera Baap Chor Hai ‘on his son’s wrist. Unable to take the humiliation his wife leaves him and Azhar loses his clarity of speech – it becomes worse than his post match interviews. There will be scenes where he vents his anger by exercising too much. On the other side, Sangeeta gets fed up of Salman’s semi-nakedness and fascination for hunting and leaves him. Then two tortured souls met and hook up. Sangeeta is bowled over by Azhar’s love for fine shirts. With time love heals everything.

I love the fabric of the shirt

Shahid Afridi and Hasan Raza – This one is a parody on how someone passed a fatwa against celebration of birthdays in Pakistan and therefore people stopped aging – on paper at least. How Afridi and Raza had to remain 16 –year olds for a long time. We could call it –‘Abhi To Main Jawan Hoon’. The song and dance will be in a school setting (obviously) with Afridi and Raza in school uniform, with water bottles around their necks dancing away with hot teachers. The closing scene will show the characters lying on their death bed still doing their school home-work

Love on the cricket field

Harbhajan and Sreesanth – A multilingual based on the love –hate relationship between two nut-cases. First there will be great friendship – the two will be shown sledging away in tandem. Love will blossom when they are serving a suspension together. Then too much cricket will take its toll and cracks will appear in their relationship, leading to a slapping, crying and makeover episode. The final scene will be from the ‘Ek Haseena EK Khiladi’ program with the two battling it out for first place. But in the end there will be no winners, only two lovers. It will be a coming out of the closet musical called ‘Cricketana’. (Remember Dostana)

The Boycott family out for a game

Geoffrey Boycott – Remember Colin Cowdrey being recalled as a 43 year old to play against the West Indies. This one will feature a 90 year old Mrs Boycott being recalled to play for England after her grandson has been sent home for batting too slowly. We will also have a flash back scene where a younger Miss Boycott will be shown playing against Bradman in the Bodyline series. This time however, Jardine will use her (as cricket’s equivalent of Mata Hari) and not Larwood to keep the great Don in check. This one should surely shut up Geoff Boycott for good.

Cricket's femme fatale