Mushrooming dream factories

CRICKET NURSERIES have mushroomed all over the country, and Delhi is no exception. With every success that India registers on the field, a new cricket clinic or cricket academy is born. More aspirants are registered with dreams of representing the country.

It is not a new phenomenon in the National capital. In the good old days, the National Institute of Sports (NIS) was the platform where the youngsters were known to learn the basics of the game, before graduating to understand the nuances of the sport. It changed with time as cricket gained in popularity and gradually more and more academies sprung up - some of them commercial.

With the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) failing miserably in its duties to spot and groom talent, it has been left to private clubs and academies to maintain the flow of talent. It is not much different elsewhere too but then centres like Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai are better organised.

For former cricketers, the best way to keep in touch with the game after retirement is through such academies. Bishan Singh Bedi, Dilip Vengsarkar, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Kiran More, Sandeep Patil, Aunshuman Gaekwad have been some of the early ones to be associated with coaching. The trend these days is such that even active cricketers take pride in enrolling themselves as coaches at some academy or other.

In Delhi, for instance, summer vacation leads to a sudden rise in the number of cricketers wanting to ``give something back to the game.'' Strangely, the only way they think of paying back their debts to the game is through such academies, which are essentially commercial ventures. Interestingly, most of such academies are floated by players with an experience of one or two Tests only which raises the credibility of such cricketers in terms of coaching a newcomer.

Why, even the Board has been involved in promoting cricketers with little coaching background. Coaching is a specialised job. Ask Gurcharan Singh, honoured with the Dronacharya award. ``Not everyone can be a coach, leave aside good coach. I won't say that players can't be good coaches but not all players can be coaches,'' he says as a matter-of-fact. It is thus understandable that the appointment of some former players as coaches in the academies to be run by the Board have raised many eyebrows.

Well, the National Stadium Cricket Coaching Centre (NSCCC) in Delhi is an exception to the commercial ventures that have come up in Delhi. Under the aegis of the Sports Authority of India (SAI), it has remained the most committed cricket clinic for years with youngsters from all walks of life welcome to avail of the facilities.

The private academies charge high fees for beginners to pick up some of the `wisdom' that the former cricketers-turned-coaches have to impart. But NSCCC is a selfless centre where the idea is to provide quality coaching at affordable cost.

It is a centre which has produced a stream of cricketers. In Delhi, along with the Sonnet Club, which is run by noted coach Tarak Sinha, the NSCCC has been known as the nursery which provides quality cricketers to the state team. Some of the known trainees of this academy have been Kirti Azad, Maninder Singh, Vivek Razdan, Gursharan Singh, Murali Kartik, Rahul Sanghvi, Ajay Jadeja, Nikhil Chopra......

The man in charge of the NSCCC now is Maninder Pal Singh. Known as `MP' in the cricketing circles, he took over the mantle from Gurcharan Singh seven years ago and has kept the tradition going.

The list of trainees who have graduated under MP's guidance includes Mihir Diwakar, Tariq-ur-Rehman, Sukhvinder Singh, Maninder Singh, Amit Suman, Shashi Ranjan, Shiv Shankar Rao, Arun Pandey....All first-class cricketers, they may not be big names but they proudly carry the reputation of being disciplined cricketers. NIS has always prided itself in keeping alive the spirit and traditions of the game and the NSCCC has not let the authorities down.

``We believe in not just giving cricket lessons. We also try to teach our trainees to be good citizens when they grow up. Discipline is never compromised at our centre,'' says MP with conviction and pride. He should know his trainees since he spends a good ten hours with them in two sessions daily.

The standards set by Gurcharan Singh, a most dedicated coach, may not have been met by the current coaches at the NSCCC but the effort to serve the students is there. Well maintained practise pitches, and a disciplined attendance makes the NSCCC a different venture, very different from the commercial ventures that are being run by most of the former cricketers in the capital.

VIJAY LOKAPALLY

New Delhi

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