Angry Bedi asks DDCA to remove his name from stand

NEW DELHI: Legendary left-arm spinner, Bishan Singh Bedi, who captained Delhi to two Ranji Trophy titles in late 1970s, has asked the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) to immediately remove his name associated with a stand the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium. He has also renounced his membership of the DDCA.

Former India captain Bedi's decision comes just six days before a six-foot statue of late Arun Jaitley, a former DDCA president and father of current president Rohan Jaitley, is to be installed on his 68th birth anniversary inside the Arun Jaitley Stadium. The stadium was renamed from Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium to Arun Jaitley Stadium soon after his death on August 24 last year. Bedi has cited this as one of the main reasons for his disenchantment.

"I pride myself as a man of immense tolerance and patience, but all that, I'm afraid, is running out. DDCA has truly tested me and forced me to take this drastic action. So, Mr President, I request you to remove my name from the stand named after me with immediate effect. Also, I hereby renounce my DDCA membership. I've taken this decision with sufficient deliberations," Bedi, 74, wrote in an 841-word long letter emailed to Rohan late on Tuesday night, and now made public.

"Late Arun Jaitley, I'm told, was an able politician. So, it's the Parliament and not a cricket stadium which needs to remember him for posterity. He might have been a good cricket fan too, but his dalliance with cricket administration was dubious and left much to be desired. This is not a rhetorical assessment, but a factual appraisal of his time at the DDCA. Take my word, failures don't need to be celebrated with plaques and busts. They need to be forgotten," Bedi wrote in his email, the language of which some people termed as "harsh".

In 1999, Bedi had contested against Arun Jaitley for the post of DDCA president and lost. Jaitley remained DDCA president for 14 consecutive years, until December 2013, when the politician opted out as India's general elections were coming up. But Bedi's real disagreement was with the "corruption" at the DDCA led by Jaitley, not against him personally.

Bedi, a former manager of the Indian team, also pointed out to Rohan that statues at stadiums are installed of legendary players.

"Mr President, if ever you get to travel to the cricket stadiums around the world you will find how aesthetically-challenged Kotla is and how it lacks the grandeur of a Test centre. You need to be educated that sports administrators don't need to be self-serving. People who surround you presently will never inform you that it's (the statues of) WG Grace at Lord's, Sir Jack Hobbs at the Oval (London), Sir Donald Bradman at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Sir Garfield Sobers at Barbados, and Shane Warne of recent vintage at the Melbourne Cricket Ground that adorn their cricket stadia, with the 'Spirit of Cricket' never out of place," he said.

"So, when the kids walk into these stadiums these majestic statues/busts enhance and enliven the inspiring stories of these past heroes that their elders tell them. Sporting arenas need sporting role models. The place of the administrators is in their glass cabins."

Bedi, a stickler for discipline, further wrote that since DDCA didn't understand this "universal cricket culture", he wanted to walk out of it.

"I can't be part of a stadium which has got its priorities so grossly wrong and where administrators get precedence over cricketers. Please bring down my name from the stand with immediate effect. You needn't worry about me or my legacy. God Almighty has been very kind to me to keep me alive with my cricketing convictions. I don't wish my strength of character to be maligned by my silence or association to this unsporting act," he said. (IANS)

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