Anant Bakhale
anant@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Former India great Anil Kumble termed conflict of interest allegations against Rahul Dravid as ‘unfortunate’ and questioned as to why only cricketers are dragged into a conflict.
“It is unfortunate that every cricketer only has to be in conflict. There are only a few cricketers who contribute for India”, Kumble said when attending the Goa Diabetes Registry launch programme in a city hotel on Friday.
“There are only 300 cricketers as of now and out of 300, I guess 50 per cent of them are living. And only those can contribute back to the game. If you don’t want them to contribute back to the game, then I think you need to find somebody else to contribute,” the former Indian cricket coach added.
BCCI’s Ombudsman-cum-Ethics Officer Justice (Retd) DK Jain had sent a notice to Dravid on specific Conflict of Interest allegations levelled against him by Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) life member Sanjeev Gupta.
According to Gupta’s complaint, Dravid is allegedly conflicted as he is the NCA Director and also employed as vice-president of India Cements group, which owns IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings.
Claiming that conflicts are in every profession, former India leg-spinner, said, “I think every professional has conflicts in every walk of life and it depends on every individual on how to deal with it and how you disclose what you are involved in. And I think once people know in what you are involved in I don’t think there is any conflict.”
Giving an example Kumble said, “I guess we are all taking about diabetes programmes here and doctors who are attending the same are having conflicts, may be yes, but I think it depends on every pros to disclose what you have.”
Kumble is India’s highest wicket taker in both Tests and one-day internationals. The leg-spinner took 619 wickets from 132 matches in the longest format and 337 wickets from 271 ODIs. He also holds the record for getting 10 wickets in a single innings of a test match and has been awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 2005.
Remembering his fond memories with Goa when he was a junior cricketer, Kumble said, “I have a lot of mixed memories. Goa never needed any incentive for anyone to come as a cricketer. It was very welcoming and hospitable. I remember myself playing as a junior cricketer for Karnataka in Ranji trophy.
The only international match I played here was against Sri Lanka at Fatorda stadium which was not a happy memory as we lost the game and also I lost my place in the Indian team. But this gave me resolve to come back into the team much harder and I have this memory rather than speaking to the one that we lost to Lanka,” said former India leg-spinner.
