 Hello everyone, welcome to playthings, News Clicks weekly sports show. Yeah, it's a big day. We saw a victory on the playing field in the Test match. India beat New Zealand quite soundly that too. So obviously, we will be talking about cricket today. But yeah, there is a difference as well because we will be talking slightly beyond cricket too. Because roster has changed and we have a guest in the studio. Mr. Pradeep Magasin is very senior journalist who has just now published his latest book which is on cricket and also it's also a memoir of a chronicle of the days that he spent covering cricket, Indian cricket and that too with the social and political context. It's built as a history of contemporary India and Pradeep Magasin, sir, welcome. Thank you. It's great to have you in the studio. Thank you so much for having me here on this discussion. And congrats on the book to start with. Thank you. I have to say, I have to admit too, I have started reading it and it's a very engrossing read as well. Again, I've glanced through the chapters. I've seen that you have written quite a bit on Indian captains during the time you spent as a journalist on the field. And two of them happen to be the right at the thick of things, elm of things right now in Indian cricket. And since it's a day that we saw India beat New Zealand on the playing field, let's start with Dravid, I guess. So many of you have written about him, you have dedicated chapters to Dravid as well as Ganguly, who is heading the PCCI. See their cricketing life is well documented. Both great cricketers, Dravid, a great test player, perhaps among the best India's ever had or the world has ever had. Ganguly, we know as a leader what he did, what he achieved. Now he's the board president, as you say, and Dravid is the Indian team coach. So that relationship which was there in earlier times as players is now transformed into administrative roles. My book is about, when I talk about cricket, these are my memoirs. These are anecdotal memoirs in the sense that I don't go into areas which I have not seen and I have not been witnessed to. And since cricket is so well documented in India, scorecards and matches, so I don't go into that. What I go into is how I have seen these relationships, these interplay between cricketers, between captains, between coaches of my period whenever I covered cricket, and how it affects them and how it affects the team. So for instance, I talk about Gavaskar and Kapildev relationship. Again, on anecdotal evidences, I talk about Sachin and other era, their relationships. Again, as I said, purely on anecdotal terms of my interactions with them, what I saw, what I felt was happening. Then it goes to Dravid Ganguly. So if you're asking me about Dravid, well Dravid, from the book's perspective, Dravid is a captain who becomes captain after Ganguly goes in controversial circumstances when the coach Greg Chappell accuses him of dividing the team or disruptor as he is called. And Dravid takes over the team is not in harmony because of these divisions. So I talk about that. I talk about my interventions. There is a chapter on Dravid where his coach is telling a journalist that I don't want certain key players, players like Tendulkar in the team. So you write about it and write a source-based story that how they are not needed in the team instead of taking my name. And this happens in Pakistan when Dravid is leading India. I come to know about it because that journalist, young journalist, Siddharth Vedyanathan comes to me, he's young, he's disturbed. India has lost the test match series to Pakistan and then the coach is talking like this. So my interaction with Dravid, what I tell him. So I kind of document that relationship with three of them. And before that, when Wright becomes the coach, I try to document what I've seen of Wright, how John Wright was, how he introduced new concepts, how difficult it was, what sort of a person he was, what his relationship was with Ganguly. It may not have been always a very harmonious relationship, but it was not a disrupting relationship. So all these incidents are there in terms of not my interpretation as opinion pieces, but I stitch this story through action, through talks, what I have talked, what I have seen, what they are. So that's how this whole book actually I have structured. That's interesting when you mention Dravid and his time as skipper. Because again, now he's a coach and also probably you will oversee a period where this transition happens when hard calls about which senior player should be in the mix, who shouldn't be, have to be taken. So can you just comment on Dravid's personality, what you have seen and how is he likely to manage this situation? Look, I will take you to the book for the question. My answer would be that Dravid as a captain is well aware, I think of the pitfalls of the senior, junior and the relationships and how a captain has 11 or 12 or 14 cricketers with him whom he has to lead. All of them are of, obviously no one person is this, no two persons are the same, they're different people with different backgrounds, different understanding of situations. So when Ganguly in 2004 I think was when Australia came here and there was this test match at Nagpur which had a green wicket and he withdraws overnight in the match because of injury and Dravid has to lead. I am covering that match and somehow I get this impression or I am told that people feel that Ganguly has withdrawn from the test, not because of injury but because he didn't want to play on that green top and India lose that match very badly. So I try to probe further, I come to know, I talk to Dravid himself and there is this, I realize that yes there is this feeling with some cricketers in the team. I convey this to Ganguly with the intention of making him aware that look he needs to reach out to his team, what they are feeling about and I write two stories in my paper, I am working with Hindustan Times then. I don't want to write directly what I have had, like what are my sources or what I base my story on. But I do write very cleverly one piece in which I, which appears on page one where I write that Ganguly, some players are suspecting that Ganguly withdrew not because of injury but because he chickened out. Then I write a second piece which I in a way appeal to Dravid to the new captain because Dravid becomes the captain for the next test man because he is injured, Ganguly has not recovered. Where I appeal to Dravid that look leading a side comes with very different problems. It's like I have been a sports editor or in the newspaper there are ten people, everyone has his own issues and views and everyone thinks that he should be given primacy over the others and there are tensions and handling them is not an easy job. So I appeal to Dravid that he should have a more holistic view of what has happened because it's not easy when he becomes the captain he will realize that. And actually when Dravid becomes the captain there are a lot of tensions in the team as was evident when everyone knows how India lost in the 2007 World Cup with Dravid and the captain. It couldn't even qualify for the next stage, it was one of the biggest upsets in World Cup cricket. So Dravid obviously must have and has matured enough he has this experience of how to deal with these tensions. And he has been now placed as you say in a situation where he will have to, he's not the captain now not so directly but as a coach you have Virat Kohli as captain in one format. You have now Rohit Sharma as captain in different format and there is speculation that Rohit Sharma may lead India in one day as well. So how to handle these egos as John Wright says in a conversation with me which is in the book that these are rock stars and if you tell them directly that don't do this, don't do that, they get upset. I have to find a way in which I tell them also what to do but I don't make them feel as if I am trying to instruct them or I am trying to change their style. I make them believe, feel that look they need to do that and there are times when they come to me, tell me exactly that hey John I have decided to do this. As if they have decided though it is Wright who has very cleverly placed those thoughts in their mind. So I am sure David is a sensible man, he's a responsible man, he's matured enough now to handle these situations. It's quite a, diplomacy is one of his key areas, attention to detail plus whatever the game, game insights that he brings onto the table. Again the second name that I mentioned sort of Ganguly is, I mean they are in a way working in conjunction and I would, I mean did you have any inkling towards, I mean when you saw Ganguly first initially also and as a skipper, that he would become the kind of administrator that he has become now. No definitely no. Ganguly has been one of the most remarkable characters in my cricketing journey I have seen, interacted with. In fact one of those rare cricketers I have been interacted and known more than most of the others. At one stage I was intending to write his biography with his consent. I have talked to his parents, he allowed me that access being to his house, being talked to his friends at that time and the biography didn't happen but I had a lot of access, a lot of information. And there was a time when, since during Greg Chapel he spat with him, I initially probably was among the very few journalists who backed Ganguly and wrote that Greg is not the right thing to have happened to Indian cricket. So I have had a lot of interactions with him which are recorded in the book. The complexity of sorrow Ganguly coming from a rich background and not being one of the fittest of cricketers and nobody thought that he would become India's captain and nobody believed even the players and administrators didn't believe that this is the right decision to have taken to made him the captain. Some people saw him as a selfish man but he proved everyone wrong, everyone knows that he led India remarkably well and the respect of his cricketers. So I document that how his relationship with John Wright, I also document this whole disruption what happened to him personally. There are certain intimate details because of my access to, he provided to his family, to himself which I don't think have been written about before. So he is a fascinating character and now he is the president of the Indian control board, very powerful man. Unfortunately he has a secretary who probably is more powerful because of his political connections. But still his relationship with Dravid during that period a lot of people felt was not good. Some people felt that it was a creation of media writing and here again Ganguly has got Dravid as Indian coach so it's a very interesting development. It's an evolution also, I mean next step in Indian cricket is under these two straw warts of Indian cricket. So one way to look at it is that it's great that cricketers have a bit of a say in the future of Indian cricket. Other way to look at it is that Ganguly's actions as BCDF president or the priorities that he has set, like you mentioned secretary is more powerful than the president as well. So probably there is a power mix, decisions are being made with the consensus of the other parties involved in that. You know how the elections were held in the BCC and how compromise formula was arrived and all that. Also unfortunately Lodha commission's recommendations or Supreme Court mandated, it's a Supreme Court which has said that these changes have to be made though they've been made but then it's the old way functioning because they've amended the constitution, the case is now gone to court again and court has so far not taken any decision. So the board is being run the way it used to be run except for the fact that because of those changes a cricketer became the board president. And so that's what I wanted to again get into it now that you have mentioned BCCI as well as cricket and how it was run earlier. So generally the games direction that you have seen in the past 30 years through your career as well as where it is now and why do you perceive the games future is because the way we look at it as journalists now as current journalists, crickets I mean I would probably be using a slightly harsh word but sanctity of the sport is in question because of the control that the BCCI and the top two other boards in the world English and the Australian boards they have on the international game and how that is affecting the growth of the game and also to a larger extent democracy in the game. So and it's all there is a direct connection to how money has also come into the game and money with certain people only. So the evolution just wanted to have an explanation. When I started reporting on cricket in 80s early 80s and India was a marginal player in international cricket. It wasn't a very strong team but that apart it subcontinent teams like Pakistan, India, Lanka had no hold or no power in the international cricket conference because India didn't have that kind of cloud because of the money. Now the whole thing has changed after live television broadcasting rights having made board richer and richer with IPL even more richer. India is now far more powerful than England probably ever was when the cricket was controlled by say England, Australia, Nexus. I think India is now what India used to accuse them now they can also rightfully accuse India of being the big bully. They have been doing that. There was a time when Mr. Jagmon Dalmia when he was the board president and when he also became the ICC president he turned the whole thing upside down and there was huge public support I remember in 2002, 2001 in South India were in South Africa when five, six Indian players were banned for a couple of matches and Tendulkar was accused of ball tampering. There was a big ruckus and India threatened to withdraw. India used all its muscle and clout where the ICC had to bought India's wishes. There is a chapter on South Africa in this book which refers to the South African society and India and to a place because I have written about my visit to Gandhi's Phoenix settlement and the Black Indian relationships. So I write that how India used its muscles and in a land where Gandhi was actually transformed himself from a lawyer to a future revolutionary or a future visionary there the money game was fought but it had no ethical basis like if Gandhi laid emphasis on ethical basis of everything that the process itself should be clean. The end if it is arrived through a process which is unethical it's not the right thing and I say that reverse was happening that ethics had no meaning in this in this fight everything was decided by which side had more money. So from 2000 to now it has multiplied many fold IPL has the kind of broadcasting rights sale of IPL has made India far richer than it was it ever was and because of that among the many things which has affected the game what is to a traditionalist a more important or a more disturbing development is how test cricket is likely possibility of it getting more and more marginalized because so much money is involved with the 20 cricket players are getting so much of money IPL is like no cricketer needs to play any other thing apart from whoever IPL because they make money like 10 crores 15 crores top cricketers in 3 months which most of the cricketers worldwide can't make even in a lifetime. So since the temptation the money so huge they would all prefer to play IPL or T20 cricket which then because it's managed by television and by businessman it will keep on expanding and it will eat up whatever little space is left for test cricket. And test cricket is important for cricket's future? It's important place if you talk to any player he will say test cricket is something which is special to him because of the skills involved are deeper more difficult and the challenges are more difficult but he would prefer to play IPL because that's where the money is. Flex of money into cricket into the game as also reflected on our trade. Our trade is also journalism is also sports journalism is also at a crossroads in India and I believe you have towards the end of your career you have expressed your displeasure to the direction that things were. Well I quit as a sports editor of Hindustan Times I resigned in 2000 immediately after 2007 World Cup and I was relatively young in the sense that I was only 50 but I had had enough of the pressures of handling people and handling marketing and handling so many other pressures that I decided it's not worth being part of it. And I became like a consultant feel answer that too I was lucky that the paper said no you write your columns and but I because these pressures are difficult to handle and when you're young maybe you can and since I had seen a different era where the temptation and it was an individual who would who didn't have these pressures of marketing advertising and other things if he had to report honestly he could but now it's so different that good luck to people who are working in these circumstances. Good luck indeed and we also we are test match players here because we always have a time time issue so my producer has been waving that our time slot is almost over so I'll get to the most important part of the discussion which I badly wanted to ask you as well is about the about the connections that you have made while covering the game the social context the political context and also your memoir the deeply felt memories that you have brought onto the pages of this book and you started off with Kashmir and that's where your roots are and you ended the book with Kashmir as well and as you know it's the turmoil still is on and now living in Delhi and looking at it and since you feel so deeply about the place and you have written about it as well so what do you look at when you look at it what do you see? Look I decided the book to be like this there is a lot of Kashmir in it there is a lot of Pakistan my visits to it and Kashmir back again Punjab terrorism because I happened to be a Kashmiri I spent a bit of childhood there I used to go back there I lived during the terrorism period in Punjab I've seen those things I've seen how Mandel agitation took place all these things have influenced me and all these things are in the book there's a bit of history in it again anecdotal not from an academic point of view but from an anecdotal point of view what the situation was at that time socially politically how it was how the middle classes reacted to Mandel the Babri Masjid demolition terrorism how we covered cricket at that period Mrs Gandhi's assassination what was the atmosphere among the relationship between Sikhs and Hindus and there are there are a lot of things in the book which are non-cricketing which are deeply at least I am deeply was influenced by those events and I tried to portray them as I felt how it changed me because you are an animal of the societal animal and wherever you are living whatever is happening around you is bound to affect you change you so I go into those things and I hope people and you will find them in grossing readable it is because sport without context is meaningless in itself because it will certainly decrease and losses just like that it's great it's good for good for celebrations alone but beyond that what is the meaning of that that is what in fact play things we the end full name of the show is play things with alien forces so it's the forces that control sport and beyond so we generally try to look at all these factors into it and in that sense your book delving into the rich fabric of context that cricket carries itself around the game around and which you have felt and noticed that it is it would be an enclosing read as I said so thanks for sharing such insightful anecdotes plus some insights into what is happening in Indian cricket at present thank you Pradeep it's always a pleasure talking cricket with you and thanks for coming in and sharing it's and I believe the book not just cricket it's it's been launched next week it will be in the bookstores on 11th from 11th December so do give it a read it's it's I've started reading it by the way and so it's pretty engrossing and also the larger social context and political context plus the historical happening around that happens around sport it's it's very richly portrayed here and much like how we try to present present sport at play things thanks for viewing this is a wrap for this episode