lost glory: Jamshedpur School of Cricket

Jamshedpur, Dec. 6: No proper training schedules, poor quality gear, neglected pitch and alleged anomalies in upkeep are plaguing cricket’s second oldest cradle in the steel city.

The floodlight-equipped Jamshedpur School of Cricket (JSC), which was established in 1988 in the posh Circuit House Area, is today a ghost of its glorious past self.

The school owes its existence to Tata Steel, which not only donated the ground but also provided basic facilities like electricity, toilets, drinking water, a clubhouse and a couple of rooms for storing gear, and yet poor maintenance has rendered the facility useless for the state’s wannabe M.S. Dhonis and Saurabh Tiwarys.

The JSC, which once took pride in recruiting some of the finest coaches of the country, has now allegedly entrusted the training module to a bunch of “inexperienced” coaches, including one who doubles up as a washerman. This is nothing short of ignominy when the likes of former Bihar and East Zone all-rounders Sudhir Das, youngest Ranji debutant Samar Bose and former Bihar batsman Kanu Chakravarty had once handled the training gear at JSC.

“The JSC is more like a cricket kindergarten now. There is no gear or schedule, leave alone discipline. If corrective measures are not taken immediately, mushrooming training centres will sound the death knell on JSC,” observed a former Ranji coach.

“It is sad to know that services of able coaches are not being utilised at JSC,” added Dinesh Upadhya, former vice-president of Bihar Cricket Association.

Jharkhand Ranji captain Ishank Jaggi also rued JSC’s sorry state. “I learnt the basics from coaches like Samar Bose and Kanu Chakraborty. Able and experienced coaches should be an integral part of any cricket training system,” he said.

Present trainees had their gripes too. “The JSC management gives us poor quality leather balls for practice. Besides, the training method is old-fashioned. Schedules go haywire and pitches are utterly bad,” said 19-year-old Kishore Tripathi, who has come all the way from Lucknow to learn the game’s finer nuances.

A senior trainee said the shoddy show was run by JSC secretary Basuree Mukherjee. “Financial matters and appointment of coaches are in the hands of the secretary. Coaches don’t come because Mukherjee is only willing to pay a pittance,” he said.

Admitting certain shortcomings, promoter and JSC chief coach Subroto Mukherjee said good coaches were not available but he had plans to form a core group of trainees who were serious in picking up lessons.

But trainees said the promoter was not clean either. He allegedly rented club rooms to outstation cricketers. “We are being charged money for staying in one of the rooms. I was not aware that we are supposed to pay rent here,” a Patna-based trainee said. Mukherjee said he only charged money in lieu of electricity.