Last-minute specialists

Behind most computer monitors at our editorial office in Mumbai is pinned a cricket calendar published by The Wisden Cricketer. It's a large sheet, four times the magazine's size, and is affectionately designed by Nigel Davies, our art director, whose eye for the small detail is incomparable. The calendar is published twice a year, and is one of the good traditions of Wisden Cricket Monthly that has been carried on to The Wisden Cricketer. It would have been daft if it hadn't, because it is such an obviously good idea.

In my three years with Wisden Asia Cricket, it is this calendar that I have envied the most. Our marketing executives are appalled that we don't have it, because which of their clients wouldn't want to put their name on a product that has a shelf life of six months and is quite likely to adorn the walls and soft-boards in many homes and offices? But we simply couldn't. The Board of Control for Cricket in India does not think much of a planned schedule. Leave aside a six-month calendar, we would struggle to produce even a monthly one.

The reasons for the delay in finalising a schedule for Pakistan's tour of India in February might well be compelling. The Indian board doesn't yet have an elected president, and it does not have the right yet to award the television rights. This isn't the place to go into whose fault it is, but at the moment, the BCCI is an organisation in limbo, and that's putting it kindly. The election of the BCCI president and the matter of television rights are both subjects under litigation, and the Test venues could well depend on who ultimately becomes the president. It shouldn't, but the reality of Indian cricket is that it does. Awarding international matches is an inherent part of the give-and-take politics of the board, just like everything else. Pakistan have little choice but to understand these compulsions and wait.

This is an extraordinary situation, but even in the best of times, the BCCI believes scheduling is a job best left till the 11th hour. The benefits of this deliberate procrastination aren't apparent to the outside world, but conceivably it increases bargaining power. The downside is easier to see: chaos, lack of preparedness at the hosting centres, unease for the touring side and difficulty for the travelling fans ... not to mention the absence of a cricket calendar.

One of the joys of following cricket in England or Australia is foreknowledge. Families plan their social calendar around Tests. I know friends who never miss the Sunday of the first Lord's Test of the English summer, or who make it a point to travel to the MCG on the second day of the Boxing Day Test, or the first day of the SCG Test on January 2. For a cricket fan, it's nice to be able to organise a few days in the year around the game: it creates a sense of occasion, anticipation. In England, the Tests are beautifully planned. They start on a Thursday and unless Australia, and of late, West Indies, are playing, they invariably take in a whole weekend. Almost a year before India were to tour England, we knew the dates and the venues. England are scheduled to tour India this winter, and if you are an Indian living in London and want to plan a cricket tour in advance, the best you can hope is that you might get to know by October.

Australia were due to start their tour of India on September 30, and until September 17 it wasn't clear who they were playing in the tour opener and where. Up to September 14, they were supposed to play the Board President's XI at Hyderabad, but after an advance party found the ground at Hyderabad to be unfit for play, it turned out that the match had actually been allotted to Mumbai. That the Australians were happy to play at the Cricket Club of India is another matter.

It is the truth that India is cricket's new power centre. It is also true that Jagmohan Dalmiya made cricket a business. But when will we learn to run it like one?