Alleging that DDCA promotes nepotism and does not put cricket first, Mr Bedi also quit the membership of DDCA.
Slamming the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) for deciding to install a statue of its late former President Arun Jaitley at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground, former Indian cricketer and legendary spinner Bishan Singh Bedi has asked them to remove his name from the spectators’ stand. The stand was named in 2017 after Bishan Singh Bedi and Mohinder Amarnath, also a former India cricketer.
Alleging that DDCA promotes nepotism and does not put cricket first, Mr Bedi also quit the membership of DDCA.
Mr Bedi wrote a scathing letter addressed to DDCA President Rohan Jaitley, the son of late Arun Jaitley, who was a minister in the BJP-led NDA government and died last year owing to multiple health issues.
“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,” Mr Bedi wrote.
“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,” he further added.
Before quitting cricket administration, Arun Jaitley was DDCA president for 14 years, from 1999 to 2013. The DDCA plans to have a six-foot statue of him installed at the Kotla to honour his memory.
“I’ve taken this decision with sufficient deliberations. I’m not prone to disregard the honour that was bestowed upon me. But as we all know with honour comes responsibility. They feted me for the total respect and integrity with which I played the game,” Mr Bedi said in his letter.
“And now I’m returning the honour just to assure them all that four decades after my retirement, I still retain those values,” he added.
Mr Bedi also revealed that he was never a fan of Arun Jaitley’s working style and always opposed any decision that he did not agree with.
“My reservations about the choice of people he hand-picked to run the day to day affairs of DDCA is well known. I remember walking out from a meeting at his residence whence he was unable to throw out a rowdy element using terribly foul language,” Mr Bedi said.
“I think I was too head strong..too Old school..& too proud an Indian cricketer to be co-opted into the corrupt darbar of sycophants Arun Jaitley mustered at the Kotla during his stewardship,” he further added.
The former cricketer said it pains him that even the current leadership follows the culture of “fawning obeisance”.
“After the Feroze Shah Kotla was named hurriedly & most undeservingly after Late Arun Jaitley my reaction then was maybe somehow good sense might prevail to keep Kotla sacrosanct,” he said.
“How wrong I was. Now I gather a statue of Late Arun Jaitley is going to be installed at the Kotla. I’m not at all enamoured with the thought of a statue of Arun Jaitley coming up at Kotla.”
Reminding DDCA Mr Jaitley was primarily a politician, Mr Bedi said it’s the Parliament which needs to “remember him for posterity.”
“This is not a rhetorical assessment but a factual appraisal of his time at DDCA. Take my word, failures don’t need to be celebrated with plaques & busts. They need to be forgotten.”
Stressing how sportsmen were honoured across the world, Mr Bedi said: “People who surround you presently will never inform you that it’s WG Grace at Lord’s..Sir Jack Hobbs at the Oval..Sir Donald Bradman at the SCG…Sir Garfield Sobers at Barbados & Shane Warne of recent vintage at the MCG…who adorn their cricket stadia with the Spirit of Cricket never out of place..”
“Sporting arenas need sporting role models. The place of the administrators is in their glass cabins.”
“Since DDCA doesn’t understand this Universal cricket culture, I need to walk out of it. I can’t be part of a stadium which has got its priorities so grossly wrong & where administrators get precedence over the cricketers. Please bring down my name from the stand with immediate effect,” Mr Bedi demanded.
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