Vinod Rai ran the Indian cricket for almost three years when
the Supreme Court of India appointed the former Comptroller and Auditor General
(CAG) as the head of the Committee of Administrators (CoA). His 33 months stint
– lasted from 2017 to 2019 – oversaw some of the biggest controversies in
Indian cricket, especially the conflict of interest episode. With his
appointment, BCCI president Anurag Thakur had to step down.
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Now three years after handing over the matter of BCCI to Sourav Ganguly
and Jay Shah, Rai summarised his time at the board in a new book – ‘Not Just A
Nightwatchman’. The book underlined many of Indian cricket’s underbelly and the
sad state of the Indian women’s cricket team.
In an interview with The Week, talking about his book, Vinod Rai admitted that
he failed to pay enough attention to women’s cricket while paying too much
attention to clear the mess of men’s cricket.
Rai said that jerseys used by women cricketers in his
tenure were actually ‘cut up and re-stitched’ from the men’s team jerseys.
“I do not think women’s cricket has been given the attention
it deserves. Unfortunately, women cricketers had not been taken seriously till
about 2006, when Mr [Sharad] Pawar took the initiative to merge the men’s and
women’s association. I was aghast to know that men’s uniforms were being cut up
and re-stitched for women’s players. I had to ring up Nike and tell them that
this was not on and that their design would be different,” he said.
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“I sincerely believe the girls deserved much better
[when it came to] training, coaching facilities, cricketing gear, travel
facilities and, finally, match fees and retainers. That was lacking and we
tried to rectify it,” he added.
Revealing another incident of poor treatment of women’s
cricket, Rai said that in the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup when the Indian team had reached
the final after Harmanpreet Kaur’s record-breaking 171 off 115 balls, Indian cricketers had to settle with samosas instead of a proper meal in the breakfast.
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“My regret was that I had not given due attention to women’s
cricket till the match in which Harmanpreet [Kaur] scored 171* in the 2017
Women’s World Cup [against Australia]. She told me: “Sir, I was cramping so I
had to hit sixes as I could not run much!” “They were told at the hotel that
they could not get the food they were supposed to, so they had samosas for
breakfast that morning!” added Rai.
