Sport - Cricket

Monitor agents: Dravid, Vaughan

— Photo: PTI

LEGENDsPEAK: Former England captain Michael Vaughan and Rahul Dravid feel that the agent business in cricket must be regulated.

NEW DELHI: Rahul Dravid and former England captain Michael Vaughan made an impassioned plea for protecting young cricketers from the menace of agents.

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit event at the Taj Palace Hotel here on Saturday, Dravid observed, “With the Indian Premier League, there are so many opportunities for the young players. They will attract agents, some of them unscrupulous. I think this agents business must be regulated. It is good to have agents but then the players are not mature enough. They get picked at 14-15 and that’s why there is need to monitor them.”

Dravid advocated the system prevalent in England where agents have to be certified by the ruling body to carry on with their business.

“That system should be in force in India too. Young cricketers need to be saved from unscrupulous agents,” Dravid stressed.

Vaughan supported the idea. “Some agents do wonderful jobs and some don’t. We have a professional players’ body to make the right decisions on behalf of the young players. The parents too play a big part.”

Despite some irritating interruptions from the moderator, Dravid managed to make some valid points.

On the subject of Twenty20 cricket dominating the world scene, Dravid noted, “We have seen some changes in the last one-and-a-half years. Some changes. The game itself has not changed.

“With the advent of IPL and some different leagues, there are more opportunities and more decisions to be made for the players. Theses are exciting times. We have to cope with the new scheduling and see how we manage it.”

Dravid disagreed that Twenty20 would overshadow Test cricket. “The youngster today has grown up watching Test cricket and some of the greats of the game. Maybe four or five years from now we would need to see what changes the Twenty20 format brings to the game.”

Vaughan struck a different note.

“I can see players very committed to Twenty20 but then they are also very keen to play the longer format. But what worries me is the future and here the administration has a role to play.

“Twenty20 is a fantastic concept but then Test cricket is the pinnacle, the hardest form of the game,” he said.

Dravid and Vaughan agreed that media pressure contributed a lot to making their task difficult when they led their respective countries.

“Media made the job very difficult for me in the last six months,” said Vaughan. “Can’t do away with it, can you? We have to learn to live with it (media scrutiny).”

“It is impossible not to be effected by it,” emphasized Dravid.

Even as Vaughan felt that the “spirit of the game would be tested in times to come and the players needed to be educated about it,” Dravid noted, “the player behaviour has not deteriorated but improved in recent times.”

On the issue of endorsements, Dravid was candid. “If you want endorsements coming your way you have to perform. The players are aware of that,” he said.

In a gesture that drew thunderous applause, Dravid congratulated India’s lone Olympic individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra on his stupendous feat.

“Watching it was phenomenal,” said Dravid and praised Bindra for his measured reactions to the media adulation after his triumph. Typically, Bindra just nodded to appreciate Dravid’s wonderful “out of the way” gesture.

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