Former India off-spinner and ex-president of BCCI N. Shivlal Yadav, felt testing times are ahead for the governing bodies of sports across the world even after the Coronavirus pandemic comes to an end.
“It is a very sad situation now. The impact will be very severe and the BCCI may incur huge losses because it will take a long time for the economy to get back on the rails,” Shivlal said in an exclusive chat with The Hindu on Monday.
Sponsors won’t desert
“I won’t say the sponsors will desert the BCCI completely but they would be hard-pressed to invest with the same kind of enthusiasm as they have done in the past,” he said.
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“But this is no fault of the BCCI or any other sports federation. This is a situation no one expected,” he added.
“There is nothing that can be done now. One has to do abide the government’s guidelines during this lockdown and hope and pray for the best,” said Shivlal.
“The bigger concern is the kind of impact the lockdown would have across different sectors once the situation eases,” he said.
Going down memory lane, he recalled the tied Test in 1986 in Chennai as his one of his greatest experiences.
No regrets in getting out
“I have no regrets in getting out (9/344 and then Maninder Singh was the last man out at 347 with Ravi Shastri unbeaten on 48 and the scores tied) in those tense, final moments. We were all so tensed up there was no time to react.
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“Yes, captain Kapil (Dev) was certainly annoyed with my dismissal but didn’t say anything to me,” he remembered.
Another memorable moment
“The other memorable moment was when I was the non-striker when the great G.R. Visvanath scored a match-winning century in the 1981 Melbourne Test. He was a genius and a joy to watch,” said Shivlal.
The 1987 Test against Pakistan in Bengaluru happened to be Shivlal’s last one. That was also Sunil Gavaskar’s farewell game.
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“It was a close match which we lost. Despite Maninder Singh’s great spells we couldn’t recover.
“We must agree that Pakistani spinners Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed bowled better,” he said.
“Sunil’s knock in that innings was a masterclass in the art of playing spin under the most testing conditions where the ball was turning square, literally,” Shivlal concluded.