In this dusty town where history and modernity coexist cheek-by-jowl, the Barabati Stadium holds a place of pride.
On its lush green turf, Asirbad Behera, the former Orissa Cricket Association secretary — he stepped down recently following the Supreme Court order on cricket reforms — sits authoritatively on a chair overseeing the preparations for the second One-Day International between India and England on Thursday.
“There is only a CEO working after everybody (some 173 members including officials at the district-level) stepped down. Since people don’t have the experience of hosting a match at this level, I am looking after the preparations,” says Behera, surrounded by at least 10 of his associates who await his instructions.
On paper, OCA CEO Bidyut Nayak and local MLA Debashish Samantray, who was made organising committee chairman, are the people in charge of the preparations.
For all practical purposes, however, it is the 73-year-old Behera, who had held office for 16 years, calling the shots. It was his name that was printed on the tickets before it had to be erased following protests.
The OCA, which seems to depend heavily on one individual, presents a case study on the feasibility of implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations in letter and spirit across all associations throughout the country.
Schools, colleges and clubs were members with voting rights in the OCA, which had 11 vice-presidents and four joint-secretaries in the now-disbanded dispensation.
Most of them are based in Cuttack, and many may be rendered ineligible if the one-district-one-vote policy is followed after a constitution amendment to fall in line with the Lodha Committee recommendations.
When Behera is asked about how things would run in the OCA without experienced hands, he says: “Let’s see what happens in the Supreme Court on January 19. If the new people come, we are there to help them.”
The OCA does not have a Stadium of its own — the Barabati Stadium was built by the Government through public contributions in 1958 — but it employs at least 80 staffers. It was 16 years ago that the State produced an international cricketer.
