The sight of Indian cricketer K L Rahul being berated in public by Sanjiv Goenka, team owner of Lucknow Super Giants, after Lucknow’s loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad, has angered cricket fans all over the country. Cricket players who have represented India and taken the nation to great victories must be given due respect by the moneyed team owners. Their money does not give them the right to treat distinguished players in this manner was the unanimous opinion of many fans.
Who is Sanjiv Goenka?
Sanjiv Goenka is an entrepreneur who is worth billions. He is the founder and chairman of the RPSG Group. This multinational conglomerate has its headquarters in Kolkata. In sports, he owns Lucknow SuperGiants and a majority stake in the ISL football team Mohun Bagan Super Giant.
This correspondent contacted a few cricket players who are from Hyderabad. They were all dismayed at the harsh way the team owner spoke to KL Rahul.
What rights do team owners have?
The question that comes to mind first and foremost is whether the team owners have the necessary knowledge and expertise to criticise their players. A coach may do it because he or she knows the finer aspects of the match, what his trainee can do and cannot do, and exactly what went wrong and when.
Moreover, coaches always support their team and their players in public. Whatever criticism they have is only done behind closed doors. That is the time-honoured etiquette of cricket and all other sports. This team owner had no idea of sports etiquette and decided to lash out at Rahul in full view of the public.
Example of European football
In European football, many of the famous clubs are owned by wealthy millionaires. Same is the case in many other countries notably in the Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia. But the owners have never been spotted rebuking their players. There too the players are paid exorbitant prices. It is not always that they can deliver what is expected of them.
It is a time-honoured tradition that only a coach can reprimand a player. The owner never interferes with the running of the game. Who is to be selected, who is to be dropped and how the team performs on the field is the sole responsibility of the coach and only he can pull up an erring player.
Victory and defeat are part of sports
The fact remains that victory and defeat are a part of sports. Every sportsman and every coach knows how to handle himself in different situations because of years of association with the ethos of sport. But in the IPL there are also the team owners who have not played professional sport.
Throughout the one-sided interaction with his team owner, skipper KL Rahul showed restraint. Despite being under fire he remained quiet and disciplined like a true sportsman should. What happened that day is the negative side of the IPL phenomenon. Team owners must change their attitude and learn to stop interfering with the running of the game. Such matters are best left to the expert coaches.
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