New Delhi:Ratnakar Shetty, a chemistry professor, began his journey as a cricket administrator in 1975 as staff-in-charge of cricket at Mumbai’s Wilson College. He then moved through the ranks, from the Bombay Cricket Association’s tournament committee to manager of Indian cricket teams and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief administrative officer, culminating in his role as General Manager before retirement.
In the fourth episode of the Bombay Sport Exchange (BSE), K Shriniwas Rao, Head of Content (Sports) at Times Internet, sat down with Professor Ratnakar Shetty. The veteran administrator gave a first-hand account of the growth of Indian cricket over the years, the politics of Indian cricket, and why the BCCI was never dependent on the Indian government.
Shetty recollects how the BCCI used to function before India won the 1983 ODI World Cup and how different it used to be from the current setup, where the Indian Cricket Board is running cricket everywhere.
“It started with a one-room office,” Shetty reminisced.
“The Cricket Club of India was gracious in those days to give space in Brabourne Stadium, not only to the BCCI but also to other sports. Even the office of the Bombay Cricket Association was on the ground floor. The BCCI was on the first floor. The total office space of the BCCI was 500 square feet. So you can imagine from where the BCCI started and rose over the years.”
The veteran administrator also revealed how a cashless BCCI used to function and why the role of the royal families can’t be ignored in Indian cricket’s growth.
“The BCCI was fortunate, or Indian cricket was fortunate, to get the support of the royal families to start with, who funded a lot of Indian cricket in those days. And then, of course, as administrators, we had the corporate stalwarts like Mr. MA Chidambaram, Mr. Mangalam Chinnaswamy, Mr. PM Rungta, and Mr. Gaikwad from Baroda, who also supported the day-to-day functioning of the BCCI.
“There was no money. And you can imagine that the treasurer’s post in the BCCI for 65 years was run by two people. One was Zal Irani, after whom the Irani Trophy is named, and the other was Mr. Chidambaram. Both of them ran the affairs of the accounts of the BCCI for almost 30-35 years each. They really were very strict in those days and managed to convince the members that prudence was in taking care of how you spend your money,” he added.
Who’s that IPL player?
Taking a jibe at the current Indian cricketers, who earn in millions, Shetty recollected how much the cricketers of that time used to get.
“The youngsters these days probably don’t realize that those were the days when Test cricketers used to be paid 50 rupees per day. A Ranji Trophy cricketer in the early days used to be paid 5 rupees. But nobody grumbled. They had a lot of pleasure and pride in playing for their state teams and even for India for that matter. It continued in that manner. It was a disciplined approach,” he said.
During the insightful conversation, Professor Shetty also revealed how the big teams used to throw tantrums when asked to tour India and why they used to ask for guarantee money before every big tour.
“The only problem that we used to face is when we used to ask West Indies, Australia, and England for a tour, we had to pay guarantee money in those days for them to travel to India. That was the demand from these big teams to come and play in India in those days. And today, the scenario is that even the big three of the ICC, I am not talking about the others, but if you look at Australia and England, even they would like India to come and play 5 Test matches and have a long tour, reciprocal once in 4 years. So, that is because your Indian players are bringing in the media rights,” he said.
Poll
Should cricketers be more appreciative of their earnings compared to earlier players?
“We used to spend money when the team toured these countries. But when we wanted them to tour our country, we had to pay them a certain amount of guarantee money. The BCCI had to pay, and the BCCI had to recover from the venues who were conducting the Test matches in those days. There were only 5 venues. So, these venues by rotation used to get the matches, and from the ticket revenue, a certain percentage used to come to the board. That’s how it was managed,” he explained.
Things have changed so much that in 2019-20, Cricket Australia was on the verge of bankruptcy had the India tour not happened.
Shetty also touched upon the topic of how the BCCI raised money to award the 1983 ODI World Cup-winning team.
“Mr. NKP Salve (then BCCI president), when he entered the dressing room at Lord’s after the Indian team won the World Cup in 1983, and they asked for prize money, he announced ₹1 lakh as prize money. I asked him about this story, and he said that the atmosphere was such in the dressing room, he couldn’t just not announce anything. But ₹1 lakh was a big amount in those days. And when he came back to India, the BCCI treasurer had to tell him that there was no money that he had announced. And then Mr. Salve used his good offices and Raj Singh Dungarpur, who requested Lata Mangeshkar to do a musical program in Delhi at Nehru Stadium to raise money for the purpose. And they raised at that time, she did not charge anything.
“If I am not mistaken, around ₹21 lakhs, out of which ₹14 lakhs for the players plus the manager, ₹15 lakhs was distributed to the World Cup team. And the remaining amount was given to the DDCA at that time. That tells you the story of Indian cricket.”
