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Ticket to ride

Given the endless cricketing treadmill, it seems just a matter of time before 'missing in action' appears against the names of some of our top players.

On Thursday, fortunately, it was merely the baggage, not the man -- namely Robin Singh, whose suitcase went missing at Bulawayo airport. Having boarded a South African Airways flight from Mumbai along with the rest of the team, at the unearthly hour of 3 am, and then waited in transit at Johannesburg airport for five hours, Robin arrived in Bulawayo and watched his team-mates disappear from the customs clearance, one after another, while he hunted around for his missing baggage. He had an Indian journalist and photographer as co-sufferers.

"I have no clothes to change into," said Robin, who at this point looked like he was sleep-walking. Sachin Tendulkar behaved with more poise, but anybody who witnessed his team-mates shake him up in the morning at landing in Johannesburg, would have needed little convincing that the little genius was tired.

"Yes, his arms are aching, indeed the entire frame," said Dr Ravindra Chaddha, the team doctor. Chadda, incidentally, was a bit more chirpy, having learnt only hours ago that the board had reappointed him at its AGM.

After his world record-breaking century in the first outing, Tendulkar was down and close to out. Understandable, given the amount he had travelled, then his long vigil at the wicket on an extremely hot day. And this, without really recovering from the cramps he suffered in Toronto, adding an edge to Azharuddin's complaint that there was no recovery time factored in to the cricket schedule.

That the schedule is bad enough is beyond dispute. What makes it worse is the insensitive attitude of the board. It was perfectly possible for the cricketers to have been flown direct to Bulawayo from Toronto, instead of flying them to Bombay and, less than 24 hours later, putting them on a long flight with a five hour wait in transit at Jo'burg.

But the board decided to cut costs -- apparently, this way, the BCCI had saved around Rs 20 lakh. Thus, as against a ticket of Rs 1.8 lakh per player if the Delhi-Toronto-Bulawayo route had been chosen, the Delhi-Toronto-Delhi return trip ticket cost only Rs 80,000 and even with the ticket to Bulawayo on the South African airline thrown in, the board ended up saving a few pennies.

Never mind that it considerably added to the strain on the players. Never mind that asking the team, in that state, to wait five hours for the transit flight was the outside of ridiculous. A penny saved, the board believes, is a penny earned -- and this, from an organisation that earned Rs 17 crore surplus last year.

How did they earn all that money? From the cricketers. You would think, wouldn't you, that the board would then have the welfare of those same cricketers at heart?

Not a hope, as is obvious.

The only halfway redeeming feature this time is that the wives have been permitted to come along (though of course, it is the players who have to pay for their spouses stay and tickets and other expenses). Thus, coach Gaekwad, captain Azharuddin, and Saurav Ganguly and Nayan Mongia, have their spouses along.

Which, given their schedule, is some consolation.