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SUNDAY SOLILOQUIES

The uncricketing games

N J Nanporia

When all the froth generated by “who said what to whom, when, how, and why” subsides the Chappell-Ganguly affair is surely reduced to asking three questions of the sort Musharraf would call the hard core. Did Chappell as a top level coach say or do anything that was out of turn? To which the answer is no. Did the captain conduct himself as a captain should? To which the generally accepted answer is no. Did the Board, as reported, handle the crisis as expeditiously and efficiently as it should have done? To which the answer is also no. No surprise then that a temporary truce has been called with all the contentious issues spot-lit by the affair left unresolved.

A coach is expected to make an assessment of each member of the cricket team, to spell out a schedule of training, to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of individual players in the light of the team as a whole, and to do all this confidentially in a report to the Board. That is exactly what Chappell did boldly, clearly and in terms which are strictly professional. In the light of the assignment he had it was the appropriate thing to do. It wasn’t simply a matter of keeping the team on its toes but of miraculously transforming it into a winning combination with the World Cup in view.

The result was a shake-up, or a fear of one unprecedented in the history of Indian cricket. A sense of insecurity, even verging on demoralisation, was unavoidable. Neither the captain nor the Board, it would seem, was psychologically prepared for a blunt speaking coach who, as he sees it, has his own complicated job to do. Notice has been given that there is now no room for cricketing prima donnas, particularly those who have been adopted by some panjandrum administrators as their prodigies.

How the current captain has reacted to this sea-change in the cricketing landscape is plain for all to see. As for the BCCI President, his call for “performance” is unexceptional provided it applies to the Board as well.

The way the Chappell report was leaked is an index to the many uncricketing games being played well behind the scenes. Whether Ganguly goes or stays and in what capacity is less relevant than giving the coach the lee-way he needs to do what he has been hired to do. As for our players they should be tough enough not to wilt under the blast of well-intentioned Australian abrasiveness and to realise that the days of mollycoddling are over.

IAEA vote: danger of self-delusion

It is not unusual for governments to take decisions in the national interest. They are expected to do that. So New Delhi’s undue emphasis on this to defend its vote in the IAEA is hardly to the point. However, what is welcome is that the UPA government, hitherto rather dithering in foreign policy, has apparently and finally discovered where the national interest lies. But is it prepared for the inevitable backlash, as much from Bush’s America in a different sense as expected from Iran? To argue that India played for time in Iran’s interests and endorses Tehran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy is not necessarily to appease the Ahmedinjad government. In fact the latter has threatened retaliation qualified by some reassuring noises. To vote for the IAEA resolution, as India has done, is not necessarily to ensure no further pressure from the Bush regime. There seems to be a large element of self-delusion in New Delhi’s over-reaching attempt to imply that all is well with relations with Iran and that additionally energy expectations from Washington have been truly cemented.

Bush’s record so far has shown that no relations are permanently cemented and expectations, however rhetorically promised, are always contingent. In the result Iran relations are at the least under strain, with no guarantee of any returns from Washington. In fact Bush will almost certainly demand more if only because what he has in mind from India has never been spelled out. A clue has already surfaced.

Strobe Talbott, no less, has pointed out — unofficially of course — that India has not accepted any “constraints” on its nuclear arsenal and this has caused “discomfort” in Washington. This message at this time is a worrisome thing and points to more difficult days ahead.

Meanwhile, as an example of many discordant voices in New Delhi we have Mani Shankar Aiyar’s unilateral “assurance” that the gas pipeline project remains in place. Does it? And wouldn’t abstention at the IAEA have served us better?

The honour of a responsible N-state

There is an answer of sorts to the second question in the agreement New Delhi has negotiated with France. Whatever Bush’s intentions his nuclear energy pact with Manmohan Singh has established a formula, legitimately granting energy rights to India as a responsible nuclear power though not a signatory to NPT. France and other members of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group have, in effect, been given a green signal to do what Bush has ostensibly agreed to do.

If Bush backs out he can hardly demand that France and others should do the same. So it can be said that the Manmohan-Bush energy accord, whatever it finally yields, has freed the NSG and France in particular really to honour India as a “responsible” nuclear state. This was a source of confidence that New Delhi failed to tap.

The decision to abstain has left both Iran and Bush with many pressures to deploy whenever they choose to do so.

Brick wall behind the Great Wall

For business reasons Rupert Murdoch has done a great deal to ingratiate himself with Beijing though he has now admitted that he has ended up against a “brick wall”. Nor has he added to his store of credibility by claiming that Fox News is not “biased in favour of President Bush” and that his channel is “more balanced than other US networks.” Here is a not untypical extract from a Fox programme: “The US should bomb the Afghan infrastructure — the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads. This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day-by-day will not be hard. Their infrastructure must be destroyed and the population made to endure yet another round of pain.”

It can at least be said in favour of Fox that one knows where it stands. It has both the convictions and the courage to live up to them. It makes no attempt to conceal the axe it is proud to yield and rejects with contempt any pretensions to an objectivity most channels strive so selfconsciously and unsuccessfully to achieve.

Arguably wouldn’t it make for a freer flow of reliable information if the media, TV or print, declared its interest and openly advertised the particular axe it has opted to grind? One result certainly would be to lower the current level of disinformation and being everyone’s credentials out into the open.

William Saffire, the export word man, and also a well-known conservative voice, has been promoting the idea of “opinionated reporting”, something which frowned upon in the past, is nearing journalistic respectability.