Raj Singh Dungarpur

Nowadays, almost all the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)-appointed administrative managers and media managers, the latter being a new breed, do their best to keep the Fourth Estate as far away from the Sachin Tendulkars as possible.

Raj Singh Dungarpur, who passed away in his Mumbai apartment on Saturday morning, at the age of 73, used to be different.

Very different.

Rajbhai, as the scion of Dungarpur royalty was better known across the cricketing world, went out of his way to treat the media as an extension of the Indian cricket team.

So much so, that on the 1984-85 tour of Pakistan (cut short because of Indira Gandhi’s assassination), Rajbhai formed the Sunday Club, a forum for us journalists to mingle with the cricketers in his manager’s suite.

For a young scribe like me, it was a chance to be under the same roof as Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, albeit for a couple of hours. The Club helped build relationships, encouraged trust and gave the opportunity to clear the air, if required.

Plus, Rajbhai would be the perfect host.

Rajbhai never spoke about it, but it’s learnt he often exceeded the entertainment allowance sanctioned by the BCCI, and paid from his personal funds.

Today, that’s unthinkable.

Indeed, such is the difference that one could even list instances when managers (both administrative and media) have actually misled the Fourth Estate on routine issues.

As for the entertainment allowance bit, almost all spend it either on entertaining themselves and their friends or, perhaps, end up saving those dollars.

Only briefly, after the media splashed Mohinder Amarnath’s memorable “selectors are a bunch of jokers” comment, in November 1988, did a strain develop in Rajbhai’s relationship with journalists.

He was then the chief selector.

So, on a personal level, Rajbhai stopped inviting me to the CCI (in Mumbai) for the superbly done toasted chicken sandwiches and the almost heavenly cold coffee.

That phase, however, didn’t last more than a couple of years. Soon, it was back to “you must drop in for sandwiches and coffee...”

One did, for Rajbhai was a raconteur par excellence and there was always something to learn, especially when he spoke of cricket in the Fifties and Sixties.

Not many may be aware that Rajbhai was himself a pretty accomplished quick and played as many as 86 first-class matches, mostly for Rajasthan.

Even if few remember that, few can forget he was a classy administrator and a chief selector with a difference.

The decisions Rajbhai took, as the chief selector in the 1989-90 season, were far-reaching.

For one, he gave Sachin his break, getting him in the squad for the tour of Pakistan.

“Chotu,” as Rajbhai would refer to Sachin in informal gatherings, is still breaking records!

Then, after that tour, he asked Mohammed Azharuddin “Mian, kaptani karo ge?”

Azhar, now an MP, went on to lead India for six-and-a-half years. He had a second (much shorter) innings as captain too.

Quickly realising that desi coaches lacked that extra edge, Rajbhai (despite opposition from some within the BCCI) got Bobby Simpson as the team’s consultant in the lead up to and during the 1999 World Cup.

He’d then been the BCCI president.

The Simpson move didn’t work, but Rajbhai showed he had vision and didn’t lack courage. Incidentally, he whole-heartedly backed John Wright’s appointment as coach, in late 2000.

Back in 1997-98, Rajbhai had okayed the coming on board of physio Andrew Kokinos. Turned out to be trend-setting.

With good reasons, Rajbhai took pride in the setting up of the National Cricket Academy, in Bangalore. “My dream’s been realised,” he often said, never forgetting to thank successor A.C. Muthiah for extending complete support from the president’s chair.

Not dependent on X or Y for his position within the BCCI and West Zone (as president of the CCI), Rajbhai never quite minced words and, occasionally, in his later years, proved somewhat a loose cannon.

Rajbhai had differences with, among others, Gavaskar and Kapil, Mohinder and Sourav Ganguly, but neither he nor the objects of his disaffection (no more than for short periods, mind you) carried a grudge.

Not even Jagmohan Dalmiya, friend-turned-foe.

It may come as a surprise, but Rajbhai, who’d helped Sharad Pawar end Dalmiya’s clout in the BCCI, did keep in touch with the one-time strongman before Alzheimer’s struck in a big way.

“Mera kisi se lena-dena ya dhandha nahin hai… I don’t have to be seen as being politically correct… I have a mind of my own,” Rajbhai told The Telegraph a couple of years ago, around the time Pawar had really turned the heat on Dalmiya.

“Frankly, I don’t approve of what’s going on in the BCCI, but they don’t want to listen to me… That’s fine with me, but the BCCI should be running cricket, not vendettas,” is what he’d said the last time we had a one-on-one at the CCI.

It’s a shame that those he’d helped come to power chose not to give him the importance he deserved.

But, then, most of those running the show have probably never ever taken guard on a cricket pitch and, as a result, must have been feeling rather uncomfortable.

After all, how much of cricket could they have talked with Rajbhai?

As Sourav put it, speaking exclusively, “we’ve lost someone who ate, slept and lived cricket.”

What of his on-off differences with Rajbhai, going back a decade?

“This isn’t the right time to talk about them… It’s a sad day for Indian cricket, for Rajbhai had been its integral part for a huge number of years,” Sourav replied.

The Dungarpur family, meanwhile, has chartered an aircraft to take Rajbhai’s body to Udaipur on Sunday morning. From there, it will be driven to Dungarpur, for the cremation at a private site.

It will be interesting to see if the BCCI is represented at the funeral of one of its tallest figures.