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| Anil Kumble |
Calcutta: Not wanting to be a “figurehead,” former India captain Anil Kumble has resigned as chairman of the Bangalore-located National Cricket Academy (NCA).
“I’d prepared a three-year vision plan and made presentations. However, the alignment just wasn’t there with the rest of the committee and I felt it best to move on and allow somebody else to take the NCA forward,” Kumble, the third most successful bowler in Test cricket, told The Telegraph.
Speaking from a lounge at New Delhi’s T3 on Monday night, waiting for his flight to take off for hometown Bangalore, Kumble added: “I didn’t wish to be a figurehead and thought it proper that I concentrate on other things.”
Kumble, who succeeded another former captain, Ravi Shastri, 15 months ago, had unveiled his “vision plan” in September.
Apparently, Kumble’s “vision plan” was “over-discussed.” Plenty of talk, but no work, in other words.
Others on the Board’s NCA committee are vice-chairman Ranjib Biswal, Gyanendra Pandey, T.C. Mathew, Rakesh Parikh and Anirudh Chaudhry.
One can understand why at least some weren’t on the same page as Kumble, an engineer who happens to be the Karnataka State Cricket Association president.
Strangely, the Board’s former treasurer and joint-secretary, Mohinder Pandove, is now the NCA’s acting chairman and not Biswal!
If the vice-chairman won’t be elevated in a ‘crisis’, why have one in the first place?
Biswal has captained India at the U-19 level and was the manager when we regained the World Cup, in April, after 28 years. He’s the Orissa Cricket Association president.
As strange is the fact that the BCCI made no official announcement, giving another stick to its baiters, who have been demanding transparency in all matters.
Kumble didn’t mention it, but a well-placed source pointed out that one more reason for his “frustration” was the NCA turning into a hospital of sorts.
The source said: “For all intents and purposes, the NCA is today a rehab centre... It’s in the headlines only when an injured player goes there for monitoring... Anil, rightly, wanted the focus to be on sharpening skills... He wanted the NCA’s activities to be wholly cricket-related.”
Kumble quit in the morning, before the Board’s working committee met in New Delhi. He was at the meeting when president Narayanswamy Srinivasan informed those present of the stunning development.
“Some of the Board members did ask me to reconsider my decision, but my mind was made up... It’s for somebody else to try and take the NCA forward,” Kumble remarked.
The loss, clearly, is the NCA and the Board’s.
That Kumble resigned exactly a day after the NCA meeting, in Chennai, leads one to believe that the tone of the deliberations proved to be the proverbial last straw for him.
Not that Kumble gave any indication, in Chennai, that he was about to close his innings at the NCA.
“This is news for me... I had no inkling that Anil was quitting,” is how Sandeep Patil, the NCA’s director of cricket operations, reacted when reached for a comment.
Kumble’s resignation has kept alive an unusual tradition of the NCA chairman either being sacked (Kapil Dev, for example) or quitting (like Shastri).
The NCA, incidentally, is located at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the KSCA is headquartered.
Kumble, therefore, won’t ever be far away from it.
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