Bottle-throwing at Barabati: What makes the OCA unapologetic?

Bhubaneswar: Two hours. That is what it took for the supposedly beleaguered Odisha Cricket Association (OCA), at the receiving end of flak from all over the cricket playing world, to send its reply to the new BCCI president Shashank Manohar’s letter asking it to explain the fiasco during the India- South Africa T20 match at the Barabati Stadium on Monday.

The OCA received the BCCI chief’s mail, giving it 48 hours to respond, at 4 pm on Wednesday. But by 6.30 pm, OCA honorary secretary Asirbad Behera was boasting to the media that he had already sent his reply. As he spoke to the television crews, there was an air of nonchalance in the OCA strongman’s voice that suggested that he already knew what question would be asked of him and had his response ready even before the mail had actually landed in the mail box.

The man who has maintained a vice-like grip on the OCA for years was at pains to emphasize that the BCCI mail did not constitute either a ‘show cause’ or even ‘seeking a report’.

“The BCCI did not ask us for a report or anything like that. They just wanted to know why we had allowed water bottles to be taken inside the stadium. We have said we allowed it on the basis of the behaviour of the crowd in the last few matches in the venue. We have given BCCI an assurance that we would not allow water bottles inside the ground in future,” he said.

Behera also sounded as if he already knew the outcome of this BCCI move. Asked by a reporter if he apprehended that the BCCI would bow to the all-round clamour for not giving an international match to Barabati in the near future, he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, “You just wait and see. We will get a match during the T20 World Cup next year.”

It did not sound like an empty boast. Behera spoke with the authority of someone who has got an assurance from the highest quarters in the governing body of Indian cricket that nothing would happen to OCA by way of punishment for what happened on Monday. “If Eden Gardens can host another match after what happened in 1996, there is no reason why Barabati should be penalised. After all, in a crowd of 45, 000 people, only a handful of people created disturbance,” he said.

The same nonchalance was in evidence in Tuesday when the OCA boss pooh-poohed the demand made by Indian cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar for a ban on Barabati as an international venue and holding back of the annual BCCI subsidy to the state association. “Gavaskar is just a commentator. He should commentate, take his payment and go home. He does not have the authority to decide on whether a particular venue should or should not host an international match,” Behera said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

OCA president and former IPL Chairman Ranjib Biswal echoed what the real boss of the state association said. “International matches will surely be held in Barabati stadium. I respect Gavaskar as a good cricketer and commentator, but he is no authority to ban matches at Barabati,” said Biswal in an interview to Kanak News on Wednesday.

Observers have been baffled by the nonchalance – even defiance – displayed by the OCA at a time when it should have been scurrying for cover in the face of the all-round criticism coming its way. But where exactly does this nonchalance come from? To find the answer to this question, one has to go back to the politics of the recent BCCI ‘election’ that saw Manohar return to the hot seat after four years.

Everyone knows that it was the turn of the East Zone this time to propose a candidate for the BCCI President’s post in the wake of former chief Jagmohan Dalmiya’s death. But not many know about behind-the-scenes deal-making that saw a reluctant Behera fall in line and agree to be one of the proposers for Manohar. (In the end though, all six cricket associations in the East Zone ended up as proposers.) An emissary of BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, the prime mover of the effort to install Manohar as BCCI boss, specially flew down to Odisha and was closeted with Behera in Cuttack before flying back the same day armed with an assurance that the OCA would propose Manohar’s name.

It is thus time for the Odisha cricket czar to extract his pound of flesh for the favour extended during the BCCI election. This knowledge is the real source of Behera’s nonchalance.