Press conferences featuring Indian cricketers run like the shortest of formula movies: the superstar arrives just that little bit fashionably late, sits on a stage and smiles beatifically. He hits a few well-tossed-up ones from reporters out of sight, thanks the sponsors, presses corporate flesh and leaves in a fireworks display of flashbulbs.

At the Taj Bengal the day before the India-West Indies Kolkata Test, the formula was stood on its head. The Indian cricket team gathered en masse not a minute late. One group sat on a long table looking in turns purposeful and detached. Another group of younger less-careworn men hung around at the back, drinking tea, eating cookies and shooting the breeze. What they did was not important. What they were all doing there was.

TAKING ON BOARD: (From left) Dravid, Lal, Shastri, Ganguly, Kumble and Tendulkar at the ICPA launch

The Indian Cricket Players Association (ICPA) launched that pleasant Kolkata evening is not a union, Secretary Arun Lal says. It is not a body seeking confrontation, the forever-confrontationist Ravi Shastri says. It is not a reborn version of the doomed 1989 Association of Indian Cricketers (AIC), they had made clear earlier. Whatever else it is not, the ICPA is the demonstration of the Indian teams' collective intention to stand on equal footing with the men who run their game. While they promise that it is not eyeball to eyeball, India's biggest cricket stars, four of whom are ICPA founder members, believe it's time to look BCCI in the eye.

Cricket is grand theatre, big business and popular currency in India, which is why this third attempt at forming an association could, if well looked after, come to more. Earlier tries didn't take off: first in 1978, Bishan Singh Bedi went to the board to ask for a raise in international match fees from a paltry Rs 2,500 per game. The fee was raised, the issue declared closed. The second more publicised attempt came in 1989, when some players were banned by the board for playing in festival matches in the US. Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri, Ajay Sharma and Kiran More took the BCCI to the Supreme Court, forcing the board to settle out of court. But the behind-the-scenes involvement of Mohinder Amarnath and K. Srikkanth is believed to have cost them the last few years of their careers. The aic was formed, almost 300 first-class players signed up, but it fizzled out for lack of support and fear of the BCCI victimising individuals.

Talk of a new association has been brewing for months among senior members of the Indian team. The ICC contracts issue provided the catalyst and provoked the need for a body to speak on behalf of the players. Lal, who says he is "scared, hopeful and optimistic, all at the same time", believes that the time has come for Indian cricket players to deal with the board as "partners" and not employees: "Everyone is calling this a union. A union presupposes we're employees. We're not. We're partners and there can't be a union formed between partners."

FRESH FRACAS: It is doubtful if Dalmiya will support the players' new body

While board members are sceptical about the objectives of the ICPA, it is unlikely there will be a reprise of 1989. These are different times: the board cannot be seen to be cutting into the interests of the players who by sitting on that dais at the launch made themselves the face of the ICPA: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and, both lastly and firstly, the Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya must grit his teeth that Ganguly, the man who was once considered his protected prince, is now standing on the other side. At the peak of the ICC crisis, when Dalmiya pressurised Ganguly to get the team to sign up, he was told by the cricketer that he understood Dalmiya's position on the matter as the board president "but I am captain of India and I must stand by my team".

It took three days and unanswered phones for the Indians to get in touch with Dalmiya and invite him to the ICPA's fund-raising dinner. The man they call "Joggu-da" said he would attend the dinner only in his personal capacity (any decision on official recognition would be discussed at BCCI's next Working Committee meeting). Dalmiya, however, was careful to ensure that Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, president of the newly formed body, was graciously received and seated in his VIP box at Eden Gardens. The former India captain was convinced he should link his name to the ICPA after he met the Indian team in London at the time of the contracts conflict. Says Pataudi: "If England, South Africa and Australia have such associations, why not India? It's a wrong notion that the association will be on the warpath with the board."

Kapil Dev supported the ICPA while former BCCI chief Raj Singh Dungarpur and Bedi flew in specially for the fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which decided it wouldn't take a fee from the ICPA. The dinner, billed by a local newspaper as the "biggest bash of the Kolkata calendar" was co-hosted for the benefit of the ICPA and cry-Calcutta, the charity supported by Ganguly's wife Dona and the Telegraph Education Foundation. The Indian and the West Indian teams were in attendance with a cricketer planted at every table sold by the ICPA to entertain those-among them TVS, Hero Honda and Nimbus-who had paid, it was whispered, Rs 1 lakh for a table. Dalmiya attended too but whether he will continue to break bread with the ICPA as BCCI president is questionable; it took the forward thinkers in the Australian board two years to recognise their own players' body.

The ICPA has at least, if nothing else, a long-term plan. If the leading lights of the BCCI treated the ICPA as more than just a bunch of boys getting too big for their boots, they would perhaps realise that right in front of them-devised by the players who bring in the bucks which gives them their clout-is a blueprint (see The ICPA Aims) for how cricket and cricket business could be run in India.

INTERVIEW: ARUN LAL
"It's for the Future"

Arun Lal, former India opener, is secretary of the IPCA. He spoke to Associate Editor Sharda Ugra about the association and what makes the 2002 version different from previous attempts.

Q. Why did past player associations fail?
A. There is a perception that if you form an association, that if you speak up or you differ in any way with the current policies of the board, it will be looked down upon. So much so that some young cricketers believe if you partake in such activity you might even be dropped. It is a very unhealthy belief. I'm sure the board will want to dispel those perceptions.

Q. Have things changed so much that the board can no longer victimise a player?
A. You still can if you're inclined that way ... it just becomes a little more difficult. But the ground realities have changed tremendously. It's very different to 1989.

Q. If perceptions haven't changed in 13 years, what has?
A. This is a terrific side-probably one of the best Indian teams I can remember in terms of team spirit. Everyone's a star in his own right and yet they stay together and are well-knit. I'm sure some have certain grievances but they hold their egos in check.

Q. Isn't this association about the rights of the superstars alone?
A. If we have certain schemes in mind, we need money and the money can only be made at the top. And the point is the superstars need not do this. Let's be honest: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, all these big guys have to an extent really got the majority of what they had to get from the game in terms of earning. The fact that these guys are doing it is for the next generation.

Q. What happens to the funds collected by the old association in 1989?
A. It's now up to the members of the past association to decide. There is a clause in the dissolution process that enables us to donate the funds or amalgamate them with like-minded bodies having the same objectives or we can even donate it to charity.

Press conferences featuring Indian cricketers run like the shortest of formula movies: the superstar arrives just that little bit fashionably late, sits on a stage and smiles beatifically. He hits a few well-tossed-up ones from reporters out of sight, thanks the sponsors, presses corporate flesh and leaves in a fireworks display of flashbulbs.

At the Taj Bengal the day before the India-West Indies Kolkata Test, the formula was stood on its head. The Indian cricket team gathered en masse not a minute late. One group sat on a long table looking in turns purposeful and detached. Another group of younger less-careworn men hung around at the back, drinking tea, eating cookies and shooting the breeze. What they did was not important. What they were all doing there was.

TAKING ON BOARD: (From left) Dravid, Lal, Shastri, Ganguly, Kumble and Tendulkar at the ICPA launch

The Indian Cricket Players Association (ICPA) launched that pleasant Kolkata evening is not a union, Secretary Arun Lal says. It is not a body seeking confrontation, the forever-confrontationist Ravi Shastri says. It is not a reborn version of the doomed 1989 Association of Indian Cricketers (AIC), they had made clear earlier. Whatever else it is not, the ICPA is the demonstration of the Indian teams' collective intention to stand on equal footing with the men who run their game. While they promise that it is not eyeball to eyeball, India's biggest cricket stars, four of whom are ICPA founder members, believe it's time to look BCCI in the eye.

Cricket is grand theatre, big business and popular currency in India, which is why this third attempt at forming an association could, if well looked after, come to more. Earlier tries didn't take off: first in 1978, Bishan Singh Bedi went to the board to ask for a raise in international match fees from a paltry Rs 2,500 per game. The fee was raised, the issue declared closed. The second more publicised attempt came in 1989, when some players were banned by the board for playing in festival matches in the US. Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri, Ajay Sharma and Kiran More took the BCCI to the Supreme Court, forcing the board to settle out of court. But the behind-the-scenes involvement of Mohinder Amarnath and K. Srikkanth is believed to have cost them the last few years of their careers. The aic was formed, almost 300 first-class players signed up, but it fizzled out for lack of support and fear of the BCCI victimising individuals.

Talk of a new association has been brewing for months among senior members of the Indian team. The ICC contracts issue provided the catalyst and provoked the need for a body to speak on behalf of the players. Lal, who says he is "scared, hopeful and optimistic, all at the same time", believes that the time has come for Indian cricket players to deal with the board as "partners" and not employees: "Everyone is calling this a union. A union presupposes we're employees. We're not. We're partners and there can't be a union formed between partners."

FRESH FRACAS: It is doubtful if Dalmiya will support the players' new body

While board members are sceptical about the objectives of the ICPA, it is unlikely there will be a reprise of 1989. These are different times: the board cannot be seen to be cutting into the interests of the players who by sitting on that dais at the launch made themselves the face of the ICPA: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and, both lastly and firstly, the Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya must grit his teeth that Ganguly, the man who was once considered his protected prince, is now standing on the other side. At the peak of the ICC crisis, when Dalmiya pressurised Ganguly to get the team to sign up, he was told by the cricketer that he understood Dalmiya's position on the matter as the board president "but I am captain of India and I must stand by my team".

It took three days and unanswered phones for the Indians to get in touch with Dalmiya and invite him to the ICPA's fund-raising dinner. The man they call "Joggu-da" said he would attend the dinner only in his personal capacity (any decision on official recognition would be discussed at BCCI's next Working Committee meeting). Dalmiya, however, was careful to ensure that Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, president of the newly formed body, was graciously received and seated in his VIP box at Eden Gardens. The former India captain was convinced he should link his name to the ICPA after he met the Indian team in London at the time of the contracts conflict. Says Pataudi: "If England, South Africa and Australia have such associations, why not India? It's a wrong notion that the association will be on the warpath with the board."

Kapil Dev supported the ICPA while former BCCI chief Raj Singh Dungarpur and Bedi flew in specially for the fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which decided it wouldn't take a fee from the ICPA. The dinner, billed by a local newspaper as the "biggest bash of the Kolkata calendar" was co-hosted for the benefit of the ICPA and cry-Calcutta, the charity supported by Ganguly's wife Dona and the Telegraph Education Foundation. The Indian and the West Indian teams were in attendance with a cricketer planted at every table sold by the ICPA to entertain those-among them TVS, Hero Honda and Nimbus-who had paid, it was whispered, Rs 1 lakh for a table. Dalmiya attended too but whether he will continue to break bread with the ICPA as BCCI president is questionable; it took the forward thinkers in the Australian board two years to recognise their own players' body.

The ICPA has at least, if nothing else, a long-term plan. If the leading lights of the BCCI treated the ICPA as more than just a bunch of boys getting too big for their boots, they would perhaps realise that right in front of them-devised by the players who bring in the bucks which gives them their clout-is a blueprint (see The ICPA Aims) for how cricket and cricket business could be run in India.

INTERVIEW: ARUN LAL
"It's for the Future"

Arun Lal, former India opener, is secretary of the IPCA. He spoke to Associate Editor Sharda Ugra about the association and what makes the 2002 version different from previous attempts.

Q. Why did past player associations fail?
A. There is a perception that if you form an association, that if you speak up or you differ in any way with the current policies of the board, it will be looked down upon. So much so that some young cricketers believe if you partake in such activity you might even be dropped. It is a very unhealthy belief. I'm sure the board will want to dispel those perceptions.

Q. Have things changed so much that the board can no longer victimise a player?
A. You still can if you're inclined that way ... it just becomes a little more difficult. But the ground realities have changed tremendously. It's very different to 1989.

Q. If perceptions haven't changed in 13 years, what has?
A. This is a terrific side-probably one of the best Indian teams I can remember in terms of team spirit. Everyone's a star in his own right and yet they stay together and are well-knit. I'm sure some have certain grievances but they hold their egos in check.

Q. Isn't this association about the rights of the superstars alone?
A. If we have certain schemes in mind, we need money and the money can only be made at the top. And the point is the superstars need not do this. Let's be honest: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, all these big guys have to an extent really got the majority of what they had to get from the game in terms of earning. The fact that these guys are doing it is for the next generation.

Q. What happens to the funds collected by the old association in 1989?
A. It's now up to the members of the past association to decide. There is a clause in the dissolution process that enables us to donate the funds or amalgamate them with like-minded bodies having the same objectives or we can even donate it to charity.