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Lele does it again

By a correspondent

Perhaps this section needs another sub-section: Humour.

With J Y Lele, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, as its sole contributor.

The man with a positive genius for navigating with foot firmly in mouth went and did it again, the other day. Granted, his motives were of the best -- the BCCI secretary was attempting to resolve an impasse arising from the fact that by the virtuoso work of the board's tours and fixtures committee, the Indian team found itself scheduled to play in both Toronto (the Sahara Cup), and Kuala Lumpur (the Commonwealth Games), at one and the same time.

Lele's original idea was to put the whole imbroglio in the lap of the International Cricket Council, and hope the global body would pull India's cricketing chestnuts out of the fire. But that attempt, during the recent ICC meeting in London, proved a washout. Though officials of the Indian, Pakistani and Canadian cricket boards were present, an agreement could not be reached.

It was then that Lele hit upon a brainwave. India, he announced, would send a second string team to Kuala Lumpur, since this after all was not a tournament recognised by the ICC. So the first team would go to Canada, the second string would go to KL, problem solved -- or so Lele imagined.

A day later, the board secretary was ducking bouncers. Malaysian cricket chief Tumku Imran angrily asserted that the world's cricketing body had indeed granted official status to the Commonwealth Games, and that besides being a medal event, the upcoming tournament was a full-fledged item on the international cricket calendar.

Lele hastily 'clarified' his statement. I did not mean the Commonwealth Games was a non-official tournament, the secretary said. I was referring, our secretary says, to the four practise games that the KL authorities scheduled before the tournament proper, in order to test the pitches.

Problem with that statement of course is that while making it, Lele presumes that the rest of the world has an IQ paralleling his own.

Consider that Lele's original statement comes in context of a question about how to solve the dilemma arising from the clash in dates between the Toronto and KL encounters.

If he indeed was referring to the practise fixtures, which are scheduled for three weeks before the actual tournament, how does it have any bearing on the imbroglio? How does the kind of team you send for a practise tournament help you resolve the question of whether the Indians will play in Canada, or in KL?

Obviously, what Lele was doing was trying to retrieve his own blunder. Typically, he ended up merely compounding it.

Meanwhile, the fate of the Toronto tournament remains in balance, with no resolution in sight.

Latest indications are that the third edition of the Sahara Cup may be called off.