Nothing could be more urgent. The Goa Cricket Association (GCA) needs to start a residential cricket academy for its junior cricketers immediately. An academy where handpicked juniors, both boys and girls get free lodging and boarding, free schooling and free coaching to become good cricketers. No rocket science this. Most progressive cricket associations in the country, which includes Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Vidarbha to name just a few, are doing just this for many years and reaping the benefts of the same.
The GCA on the other hand, very feebly has stated on their amatuerish website that they plan to start an academy sometime soon. No details of when, where and how. This is rather unfortunate, considering that the BCCI doles out a whopping Rs 60 crores (Rs 600 million) every year to full members like GCA as infrastructural subsidy. The BCCI has advised its members to run fully equipped residential cricket academies to develop the game at the grassroot levels.
Kerala is arguably the best role model in the country. Through their ambitious, Cricket Academies and Sports Hostel (CASH) mission in 2009, the Kerala cricket association today, has an impressive 27 residential cricket academies across their state. Selected boys and girls are offered free schooling, lodging, boarding and cricket equipment. This is a huge, win-win. The selected players stay together, play together and study together all year round. Typically, a Kerala cricket academy has a professional cricket coach, a physiotherapist and a psychologist guiding the young cricketers. The cricketers get to play plenty of matches against each other and across India.
And the results are showing. Kerala, which was an ‘also ran’ some years ago, boasts of a first class team today which can clash swords with the best. Just sample this. Last year, the Kerala men’s T20 team won the league stage of the All India Mushtaq Ali trophy and their women finished national semi-finalists. In the Ranji trophy championships last year, Kerala piled up 401 first innings runs against a strong, Hyderabad team on the latter’s home ground. Likewise they scored 441 runs against Goa on the Porvorim ground and bundled out the home team twice for sub-200 scores to win easily by an innings. Not surprisingly, two, Kerala players, Sachin Baby (Royal Challengers Bangalore) and Sanju Samson (Delhi Daredevils) featured in this year’s IPL.
Ditto with the Vidarbha cricket association (VCA). The VCA has also invested in residential cricket academies for its junior cricketers. The young cricketers are offered schooling, cricket training, lodging and boardng facilities free of cost through the year. This has yielded the desired results. The ascendancy of the Vidarbha cricket team is there for all to see. Last year, Vidarbha topped its Ranji trophy ‘A’ table with four, outright wins and 29 points. Not only has Vidarbha given Indian cricket, a lethal fast bowler in Umesh Yadav, but Faiz Fazal, with eleven, first class centuries under his belt is winging his way to Zimbabwe with Dhoni and company later this month.
Likewise, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket association (HPCA) with its headquaters at the picturesque, Dharamshala ground follows the same cricket academy formula. The Himachal Ranji team is a strong outfit and has been making steady progress. Early this year, the Himachal T20 team beat a much stronger Tamil Nadu team by six wickets in the Mushtaq Ali tournament and finished third in the Group C of the 2015 Ranji trophy championship.
What stops the GCA from emulating the good practices of the above mentioned associations? The GCA must start a residential cricket academy at its Porvorim headquarters, build cricket grounds at the taluka level and create plenty of playing opportunities for its junior cricketers.
I had the privilege of watching Goan junior cricketers at their summer camp at the GCA’s Porvorim ground and the Margao cricket club (MCC) in May this year. 25 boys each were selected for the under 19, under 16 and under 14 GCA summer camp and were trained over 45 days under the watchful eyes of Nandan Phadnis, former Maharashtra Ranji trophy wicketkeeper-batsman and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) level-B coach.
A few bright sparks could easily be spotted. Like the under 14, dimunitive left hand batsman who played with a very straight bat or the under 16 left arm, china man bowler, who rarely missed the spot and the under 16, right arm medium pacer, who knew his line and length. However, as Phadnis pointed out, the boys seemed to lack the hunger and passion for the game. Phadnis attributed this to insufficient match practice and lack of playing opportunities.
Phadnis was of the firm opinion that the GCA must necessarily invest in a long-term residential training academy for its young cricketers. Coach Phadnis also pointed out that the GCA must desist from subjecting young Goans to T20 cricket. As, he pointed out, there are no T20 tournaments at the junior level and the boys necessarily must play the two-day game to prepare for bigger battles.
The GCA also needs to do some urgent housekeeping. A visit to the Porvorim grounds in May revealed the ugly sight of rusty, lawn movers piled up in one section of the ground. This is dangerous for the cricketers and also occupies ground space. Such waste must be scrapped immediately. The infrastructure at the indoor training centre also left much to be desired. The protective outer covers were torn and all the costly equipment was exposed to the outside atmosphere. And yes, the GCA also needs to revamp their website, on the lines of the professional Kerala Cricket association website. Come on GCA, you have a lot of work to do!
Rahul Chandawarkar is a Colva based journalist and former editor. He is recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award for 2009
