Odisha Cricket – An Unfulfilled Dream

Odisha Cricket – An Unfulfilled Dream

Being a cricket crazy nation, the authorities of sports in India give cricket plenty of attention. Odisha has also received adequate support in terms of cricket, but this has not transpired to greater Odia representation in the national cricket scene. Barring some well-known names from past decades, Odisha cricket has not seen any names being included in the national cricket team or even the IPL teams in recent times. To make matters worse, even the support staff of these teams like physios, coaches and umpires don’t have any Odia people in the list. 

My City Links tried to get a sense of reality by interacting with two Odias associated with Odisha cricket – Ex-cricketer and coach Pawan Agarwal, and current Odisha Ranji player Anurag Sarangi. While Pawan talked about the past glory, current scenario, systemic loopholes, and suggestions to improve Odisha cricket, Anurag gave a current player’s perspective of all the happenings in the field. 

The Golden days of Odisha cricket

Pawan Agarwal is a retired Ranji player of Odisha who has also played for Indian Railways. He is also a BCCI Level-2 coach of India, having passed out from National Cricket Academy Bangalore. 

During our conversation with Pawan Agarwal, he referred to the period around 1998-2002 as the golden days of Odisha cricket. It was a time when so many new names from Odisha got opportunities to represent themselves at the national level. Names like Debasish Mohanty, Shiv Sunder Das, Sanjay Raul, Sanjay Satpathy, Rashmi Parida and Pravanjan Mullick showed the increasing clout of Odias over the sport. These players played at different levels nationally and internationally, earning laurels for Odisha. Pawan recollects that seeing this sudden rise of talented youngsters, Sunil Gavaskar had commented that Odisha is emerging as the cricketing state of India. Odia youngsters, as per Pawan, had a deep passion for the game and were very talented. There was greater enthusiasm and excitement, with development in terms of infrastructure and allocation of greater funds for developing cricket in Odisha. However, all of this gradually fizzled out to become a sad state of affairs. 

The Current Scenario

There was a change of leadership, management and support staff after this said golden period. Pawan stated, “Somehow, I feel the infrastructure was not properly utilized. These new staff, I think we're not so professional. Even the professional staff didn’t have the freedom to implement their decisions without any obstructions. Because of that we couldn’t produce any notable names after that, except a few players such as Haladhar Das and Biplab Samantaray, who despite being selected for IPL didn’t get the opportunity to play. There was mismanagement on part of the authorities. Talent was also not being searched properly and not nurtured effectively.”

He further suggested, “I would sincerely want the government to interfere, though OCA is an independent body, because cricket being a popular sport is not getting the desired representation from Odisha. Even at the level of support staff like umpires, trainers and video analysts we don’t have Odia representation. Being an Odia we have nothing to be proud of. International matches are held in remote places like Himachal, but when it comes to Odisha there is none. The system and the management is responsible for all this as they have not done their duties properly.”

Odisha is poor at the junior level, at the U-15 level, at the U-23 level and up till the Ranji trophy level. As per Pawan, our bench strength is zero at the moment. Our performance at all levels has been disastrous. “If we compare with Bengal’s cricket team, they used to play at the plate level, but improved and raised their level to reach the finals of Ranji trophy. There was a change of guard that led to these positive developments.”, he said.

Suggestions for Improvement

Pawan gave many sage advice regarding improving the current condition of Odisha cricket. He remarked, “My message to youngsters who are playing is that if you are playing well and scoring, say a century at the intrastate level, when you play against another state’s quality bowling attack, you will only be able to score 20-30 runs. So they have to prepare accordingly. There has to be a leaps and bounds change in quality. Our infrastructures have to be utilized to their full potential. Talents are emerging in small towns and villages. Cricketing infrastructure should reach these locations, as big players have always emerged from small cities. This is because village boys are more athletic and strong than urban ones, in my opinion. We are not getting the result of greater allocation of funds to cricket. So I think accountability needs to be fixed at the management level.”

When it comes to coaching, only an Odia person can understand the requirements of Odia players, as per Pawan. The most successful coach that Odisha has ever had is Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra. Debasish Mohanty and Rashmi Parida are a few other coaches who have also done an admirable job. All of these successful coaches were Odias. “The other coaches come for a specific time only with an intention to earn some money. They don’t have the love and affection needed in the job for the state. The youngsters need to be identified young and groomed early by good Odia coaches so that they can give their services to the state for many years at Ranji trophy level. For this talented players from the age of 18-19 years need to be given a chance in the Ranji trophy. There has to be a change of guard to improve the team’s performance. So far I find the performance of the Odisha team to be very disappointing.”, Pawan concluded.

A current player’s perspective

My City Links spoke with Anurag Sarangi, a current Ranji player for Odisha, who made his first class debut almost 10 years back. As a senior player of the team, Anurag accepted that the off late Odisha cricket team hasn’t performed up to the mark. He informed that there was slightly better performance in Vijay Hazare Tournament, but in Ranji the performance was below par. 

Speaking of his career, Anurag said, “There have been many ups and downs in my career. At the team level also we have been through the highs and lows. We have been to the quarter finals of Ranji Trophy three times in my playing career. In 2014-15 we lost at the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament’s semi-final. The same year we played at Vijay Hazare’s semi-final also. In 2016-17 as well as 2019-20 we qualified for Ranji Trophy’s quarter finals.”

There are 8-9 league matches in Ranji Trophy, consisting of 4 groups of almost 35 elite teams. If a team wins 4-5 league matches, then only the team qualifies for the next round. Only the top two teams from each group qualify for the knock-out elimination of quarterfinals. 

On the challenges he faces as a player, Anurag explained, “As a player we are getting to play sufficient matches. But we need quality matches before the season starts. I am not talking about selection matches. Our players need assurance that they are playing in the ensuing season. Otherwise they play with a constant fear of not getting dropped from the team. So, we need quality matches before the season with quality opponents, which is not taken into account for selection. I believe this can bring out the best in the players in the due course of time.”

Anurag expressed the view that OCA is doing enough for local talents to come up. “There are intra club matches and leaderboard systems. It can be improved further, but when I compare with the time when I started my career, we have definitely improved the system.”, said Anurag.

About the coaches, Anurag agreed that Odia coaches such as Rashmi Parida, Shiv Sunder Das and Debasish Mohanty, who have seen the senior players from a young age, will definitely understand them better. They can be the best judge. However, Anurag felt very satisfied with Wasim Jaffer’s tenure as Odisha’s coach, though he is not an Odia. Regarding Odisha cricket’s future, Anurag expressed, “There are definitely better days coming for Odisha cricket. It is not right to blame the administration for every loss. The players have to slowly realize this.”

Anurag finished the conversation by stating that there is scope for improvement in the fitness levels of the players as an individual and as a team, and in better preparedness before the cricketing season starts.