The External Affairs Minister dropped a bomb on statuary, no not in Pakistan; but in media with this explosive cricket news that he was offered the post of the President of BCCI back in the 1980’s. It came as a surprise to Mukherjee when he was first approached by the luminaries of Indian cricket. But the veteran politician’s first reaction was like this’ “What will I do there?” And so the Indian cricket board never had this seasoned politician as its top boss.

So why did Pranab Mukherjee let it go? When approached by former BCCI President B.N. Dutt and Jagmohan Dalmiya, Mukherjee told them to come back a day latter. Meanwhile he consulted Mrs. Gandhi, then Prime minister of India. But Mrs. Gandhi was not ready to lose her Man Friday to cricket and so she asked Mukherjee to give cricket a miss and concentrate on the important assignments that lay ahead. How could he go against his mentor? And so to the bad luck of international cricket , it never got a cricket administrator as shrewd as Pranab Mukherjee.

Then, Mukherjee who hails from Rural Bengal claims that it was the football that was his first love. But he acknowledges the immense socio-psychological impact of cricket in the psyche of the people of the sub continent. Describing it as a national obsession, he praises cricket for its bonding capacities: “In its progress from being a game of the royalty to a game encompassing all sections of society, cricket exemplifies our philosophy of unity in diversity”.

Country’s external affairs minister recalls the joyful moments of India’s World cup victory and recalls the wave of excitement that hit the country when the cricket news reached the nation late at night. The first call made to him after the historic win was by none other than the first citizen of India herself; “This is really a glorious occasion and our heads have gone high." Were the words that Mrs. Gandhi shared that night with her trusted ally? Although India’s achievements in international cricket arena make him proud, the veteran minister does feel that India should go beyond a single-game nation and try and emerge as an achiever in non-cricketing disciplines too.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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