Remember Kamal Morarka? The Vice-President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India last made waves for his (in)famous statement on the CBI report into match fixing. "It reads like a prostitute's diary," he thundered. Being a politician AND cricket board official, Morarka is perhaps speaking from personal experience.
Now he is up to his old tricks, shooting from the lip. With Outlook once again managing to dig up some dirt on cricket and cricketers - how come it manages to leave our politicians intact? - the drugs story is the latest 'scandal' the Board has to deal with. Or does it? Well, Mr Lele being Mr Lele, he of course came up with his usual reaction. The BCCI secretary's standard response to any crises, real or artificial is: "Rubbish". As in match fixing is "rubbish"; the Cronje tapes are "rubbish", etc.
You get the idea. This time he has come up with a Hindi variation maybe for the sake of the newly elected president of the Bihar Cricket Association, Laloo Prasad Yadav. "Bakwas", Lele thundered when asked for his reaction to the drugs charges.
Coming back to Morarka, you have to hand it to him for a succinct quote. "If our cricketers are taking performance-enhancing drugs than how is it their performance is so poor?" Morarka has a point. A tour of Zimbabwe should not rank too high on the difficulty-scale of international cricket. Why, they even fall below us on the various ranking charts released by various companies wanting free mileage.
There was much excitement over India's win in the first Test at Bulawayo, the first outside Asia for 15 years and all that. Mind you, the winning target was hardly going to be a challenge once the home side's two top bowlers limped off. Of course the team came crashing down to earth at Harare with one of those batting collapses Indian cricket fans should have got used to by now. The one-day tri-series followed a familiar script too.
Remember the ICC mini-World Cup in Nairobi last year? We beat all the top teams in the world and then lose to New Zealand in the final. Tough luck! This time we go into the final with an all-win record. Only to run into a West Indies team which suddenly finds its batting touch.
So how come those darn drugs were not doing their magic? What a waste of money! Our players should demand a refund. Strange that with all these steroids our boys still look scrawny and under-nourished. Just take a look at our pace attack. Ajit Agarkar, Debasish Mohanty, Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan all look like they could do with some more muscle.
So what will Outlook look for next? Its editor has already gone on record (on STAR TV) as stating that no one is interested in what our politicians do "with a bottle of whiskey at 3 in the morning. That is their business."
The same rules obviously do not apply to cricketers. After all, a mere sportsman cannot order raids of any sort on the magazine's premises!
So now that the Azhar/Bijlani liaison is yesterday's news (and what is more, legitimised), we know have to read puerile references to Sourav/Naghma.
Let's have a bet. My money is on the magazine's investigative reporters - the editor does not believe in employing sports journalists - currently working hard to get the ultimate scoop. 'The Secret Sex Lives of our Cricketers!'
Watch this space.




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