Karnataka State Cricket Association headquarters [KSCA] in Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore is full of activities.At the KSCA secretary’s office, former Indian pace spearhead Javagal Srinath is talking to the representatives of a lighting company about sprucing up the floodlighting for the forthcoming ICC World Cup in February.
President of the KSCA, Kumble has taken charge—much like the way he did with the Indian team when he was anointed skipper.The decision to pull out of the Indian Premier League auction brought down the curtains on his cricketing career, but Kumble is ?starting a new spell as a cricket administrator. “We thought this was the right time to get in. Otherwise Karnataka cricket would suffer,” says Kumble.
Kumble and his group, which includes Srinath and former Indian pacer Venkatesh Prasad, swept the KSCA elections, winning 22 of 24 ?seats. “We wanted elimination of syndicates and a clear mandate,” says Srinath. “We stated our vision. We divided the voting areas based on geography instead of community. We then decided who was with us and who wasn’t by marking them under red, green and yellow heads.” .
“We learnt our cricket here, spent 20 years of our lives here, we feel a natural responsibility towards it. We could have sat back and criticised, but we wanted to make a difference,” says Srinath
The KSCA is now in a race against time to give the Chinnaswamy stadium a much-needed facelift before the World Cup—better facilities for the players, the media and the public, and HDTV for the audience, besides a paint job. Creating a talent pool, nurturing talent, developing facilties in districts and building a state-of-the-art KSCA academy are also on top of their agenda. Says Srinath, “We have to give life to district academies. We aim to have academies in Mysore, Hubli and Dharward districts, where cricketers miss out due to lack of opportunities. Whatever we do, we have to keep in mind that it will be for the next 20 years.”
“I am planning to build a database so that a cricketer’s improvement can be monitored. The purpose of the NCA is not only to develop talent but sustain and improve performance over time,” says Kumble.
Kumble has also started a conse-rvation initiative, the Jumbo Foundation, named after his nickname. It recently hosted the Jumbo Wildlife Awards to honour forest officers in Karnataka. Kumble also runs a sports management agency, Tenwic, and has opted to remain with his IPL team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, as its chief mentor.
So, can he be a good administrator? Kumble is not the first player to get into cricket administration. There have been others who took a successful shot at it—Dilip Vengsarkar, Shivlal Yadav, Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan, to name a few. Kumble’s pullout from the IPL is only the end of his long spell as a player. He is aware of the expectations from his new innings
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