The Hindu Business Line : Who wants to hire cricketers anymore?

Star cricketers in India get multi-crore endorsement deals and hefty pay packets. But life is tough for the beginner with even the ubiquitous `cricket jobs' drying up in the banking, railway and corporate sectors.

The way cricket is organised and supported in India is different from England in one vital aspect, that of the livelihood of players. There is no professionalism in Indian cricket in its truest sense; it is not until they play for India that cricketers are `contracted' to play the game. Even at the highest level, the central contract system came into vogue only a few years ago. Earlier players were remunerated, albeit handsomely, based on match-to-match performances. In other words, there is no financial security in cricket in India, except at the Test and ODI levels. At the State level, thanks to the efforts of the Players' Association and the changed approach of the BCCI, players are compensated better, with part of their earnings per match going into a reserve fund that will be paid to them at the end of their career. State-level cricketers still have no contract for fixed tenure.

The scenario is different in England, where counties hire players as professionals, who do not unduly suffer monetarily if not selected to play for England. Clubs in the various leagues too hire professionals, though usually not more than one per team, and quite often from overseas.

Cricket remained largely an amateur pursuit in India until about the 1980s when a measure of professionalism entered the game, in a rather indirect manner. This was the culmination of a practice, begun almost casually by British companies in pre-independent India, of appointing sportspersons, cricketers in particular, as employees and giving them free time to practise and play cricket competitively.

The companies themselves participated in local leagues and knockout tournaments, but these were not taken too seriously, the general idea being that sportspersons ought to be encouraged, and what better way than by giving them job security and enabling them to play the game without financial worries?

The Sport & Pastime Trophy (now The Hindu Trophy), the brainchild of the late V.R. Lakshmi Ratan, honorary secretary of the Madras Cricket Association, was one such initiative aimed at encouraging companies to employ cricketers.

Early patrons

The earliest patrons of cricket in India were `European' companies like Burmah Shell and Philips, as well as the railways, but equally important was the contribution of the princes and maharajahs of India. Holkar, Baroda, Patiala and Vizianagaram are examples of princely states where cricket flourished, and where a top cricketer could find employment as a professional.

After Independence, the armed forces have regularly fielded a Services team in the Ranji Trophy, and the various regional railways enter teams in the local leagues and play one another in inter-railway competitions before picking an all-India Railways team. (The Railways are the current Ranji Trophy champions, but the jobs that the Railways offers cricketers are not highly-paid and therefore unlikely to attract stars).

State Bank of India and other public sector banks were in the forefront of cricket patronage for nearly three decades starting in the late-1950s; the inter-circle matches of the State Bank sometimes produced cricket of a higher class than the Ranji Trophy and the all-India bank team that took part in tournaments like the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup was of high calibre.

In Chennai, the game has had several committed supporters through the decades like the State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Bank, EID Parry, Stanvac, Burmah Shell, India Cements, India Pistons, SPIC, MRF, and Chemplast. Many of them not only hire cricketers at handsome salaries, they also maintain top-class grounds in collaboration with colleges and schools. Some like MRF and SPIC also support coaching schemes on a large scale.

In other parts of India, corporate support for cricket was for long provided by groups like ACC, Mafatlal, Escorts, VST Industries, State Bank of India and its subsidiaries, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank and Vijaya Bank. In recent years, however, many of them have stopped recruiting cricketers.

Even star cricketers, including some Test players, have no jobs outside cricket. Some do win league contracts in England, but not everyone is so lucky.

The Chennai connection

This was one reason why cricketers with established credentials gravitated towards the Chennai league to secure their professional career. The excellent pay package, training and practice facilities, and match opportunities on offer prepared them for the rigours of first-class cricket; local players too gained through vital exposure to quality opposition. The best of the local cricketers also received considerable word-of-mouth publicity outside the State, often reaching the ears of the national selectors.

In the last decade or so, players of the calibre of Vikram Rathour, Sujit Somasundar, Dinesh Mongia, Tinu Yohanan, Ananthapadmanabhan, Venugopal Rao, and even Rahul Dravid on a few occasions, have brought a touch of the exotic to cricket in this part of the country.

However, a recent legislation introduced by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) has put an end to all that. It has severely restricted the opportunities for players from other states to take part in the lucrative TNCA league championship. Now, it is virtually impossible for an out-of-state player to become a member of one of the local teams sponsored by a corporate entity.

Among those who have welcomed the move are those who felt that the presence of `outsiders' was curbing the growth of home grown talent. True, there have been several excellent performances by local boys this season, but the dilution of standard resulting from the exit of national-level players cannot be ruled out

It is time that the BCCI and state associations all over India take note of the situation and infuse greater professionalism into the game at all levels, so that a future crop of young cricketers is not lost to the game for lack of financial security.

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