Another ad hoc appointment for West Indies tour

In a reflection of contradictions plaguing Indian cricket, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) continues to dither over the appointment of a full-time administrative manager for the national team, a personnel vital to easing the burden off the coach and the captain, even as it repeatedly proclaims the need to professionalise the way cricket is run and the need to treat the game like a business.

The BCCI, however, has planned to appoint a full-time assistant manager, who would work under the manager, and will continue to be appointed on a tour-by-tour basis.

"Manager is always a post to be filled by board members," Niranjan Shah, honorary secretary of the BCCI told Cricinfo. "We are trying to find a permanent assistant manager, but that will not happen immediately. We will have a process for this and may also engage Tata Consultancy Services to help us in this." Shah confirmed that a request for a full-time manager had come from the team management.

The Indian team leaves for West Indies late night on May 10 and Ranjib Biswal, the national selector from East Zone, has been appointed manager for the ODI segment of the tour while D Dongoankar will handle the Test leg, assisted by Ravi Sawant, a vice-president of the Mumbai Cricket Association. In recent times it has been the practice to send a selector on tour, but a decision has not yet been taken on which selector would go to the West Indies, apart, that is, from Biswal, a board source revealed. Biswal was being sent as a manager in his capacity as president of the Orissa Cricket Association.

Currently the manager¹s post is filled in by a member of the BCCI. More often than not this person has no training to perform the required role. It has been a long-standing contention that the board used the manager¹s post especially on plum foreign assignments to dole out favours within the board.

The manager performs several key administrative functions, including coordinating logistics during a tour, ensuring the availability of proper practice facilities and other matters like dress codes for official functions. If the manager is not efficient it puts added pressure on the captain and coach, who lose valuable time distracted by details of this kind.

It is perhaps no coincidence that India have done well on tours where experienced managers have been on the job. John Wright singled out Chetan Chauhan, the former Test opener, who was manager when India beat Australia in the epic home series of 2001, for praise. The players are also known to have been comfortable and happy with Amrit Mathur (World Cup, tour to Pakistan 2003-4), Wing Commander M Baladitya (home series against South Africa and Sri Lanka 2005) and the highly efficient Professor Ratnakar Shetty.

It is well known that both Rahul Dravid, the captain, and Greg Chappell, the coach, have stressed the importance of having a full-time administrative manager traveling with the team. Other international teams have long since moved away from an ad hoc system of appointing managers. Steve Barnard, a former New South Wales fast bowler and later state and national selector, has been Australia¹s manager since 1998, and performs the role both for home and away tours. South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka all have permanent full-time administrative managers.

But this is not a new request from the Dravid-Chappell combine. For years now the players have been asking for a full-time manager. In fact there has been the suggestion that the manager has a role to play throughout the year, and not just on tour. Even when there are no matches happening he could coordinate the movements of players, liaise with garment manufacturers to make sure that the players were appropriately kitted out when a tour began, consolidate medical reports and recovery charts for players who are recovering from injury etc.

For the moment, though, the players have to be happy with having a board official doing the job on a one-off basis on tour, while hoping that an assistant manager is appointed at the earliest.