Cricket / Roger Binny a BCCI president a cricketer a gentleman and Ajaatshatru

Cricket | If the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had kept the title of 'Gentleman Cricketer' in its annual awards in the 1980s, Roger Michael Humphrey Binny would have been a big contender to win it for several seasons. The 36th President of BCCI can be called 'Ajatshatru' in one word, who has no differences with whom in the world of cricket. Binny does not stand anywhere in front of his predecessor Sourav Ganguly if the performance and statistics on the cricket field are considered, but he knows well to cherish relationships. After Ganguly, the BCCI would hardly have had a better option than Binny as a player administrator. He has been one of the most hardworking, honest cricketers in the history of Indian cricket.

During his four-and-a-half decade association with the sport, Binny has only made friends. In the state level team, he had normal relations with everyone in the Karnataka team adorned with stars like Gundappa Vishwanath, Erapalli Prasanna, Syed Kirmani, Brijesh Patel. He was a very popular member of the Indian team of the 1980s. The pair of him and Madan Lal played the role of Kapil Dev's assistant for seven-eight years. Binny's contribution in making the Indian team the world champion in 1983 was no less than that of cricket cricketers like Kapil Dev, Sandeep Patil and Yashpal Sharma. The cricketers of that team, who achieved less achievements than Binny, were no less than anyone in terms of stardom.

How much Binny was in the team of that World Cup, it was shared by Sunil Valson in a conversation with PTI-Bhasha. The left-arm bowler said, "Roger was injured during the World Cup and I had to play in his place in a match. There was a fitness test on match day and the way Roger ran, I knew he would play. Feeling bad for him, but you couldn't feel bad for Roger. He was the most loved person in the team.

He proved that he was no less than any other bowler if the conditions were favourable, taking seven wickets in the 1986 Test against England at Headingley. However, this Test is remembered for Dilip Vengsarkar's century. Binny, who batted down the order for the Indian team, opened the innings for Karnataka several times. Opening the innings against Kerala in 1977–78, he shared a 451 run partnership with Sanjay Desai, a long-time first-class record.

He was a specialist opener who had to bat at number eight or sometimes even ninth in Test matches because of the presence of players like Sunil Gavaskar, Anshuman Gaekwad, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev and Ravi Shastri at the top. It was difficult to make it to six. Despite being an effective swing bowler, Binny's Test career never took off. He took only 47 wickets in 27 Tests which does not reflect his talent.

He was not effective on Indian pitches due to lack of pace in the bowling and his Test career ended with Gavaskar. Sunil Gavaskar's last Test Binny also proved to be the last Test. He, however, took six wickets for 56 runs in an innings at the Eden Gardens in a match of this series against Pakistan. This became the best performance of his Test career.

Binny continued to play Ranji cricket for a long time after being dropped from the Indian team. Cricketers like Rahul Dravid, Javagal Srinath, Anil Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad started making recognition under his captaincy. Binny later became the coach of India's Under-19 team. Under his supervision, the team won the World Cup title in the year 2000 in the presence of players like Mohammad Kaif, Ritinder Singh Sodhi, Yuvraj Singh. Binny has in the past been a member of the senior selection committee headed by Sandeep Patil. He became the national selector in 2012 but left his post in the third year of his tenure after the Lodha committee raised the issue of 'conflict of interest'.

The reason for this is his son Stuart, who himself has been a national level all-rounder. Sunil Gavaskar wrote in one of his columns that when he came to know about this, it was found that whenever Stuart's name was discussed for selection in the Indian team, Roger used to distance himself from it.