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India vs Australia: After 1983 and 2011, India is now preparing to set a record in 2023. India, who have been recording one great victory after another since the beginning of the tournament, are now just a step away from becoming the world champions. The team will face Australia under the leadership of captain Rohit Sharma on Sunday. Now that the whole of India is looking at the historic win, another historic period is in the news, when India was on the verge of losing membership from international cricket.
Then it?
This was the time when India became independent i.e. 1947. It is said that a political decision of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made India a member of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Now it is called International Cricket Council or ICC. Nehru’s decision was fiercely opposed at the time, but it proved to be very beneficial for Indian cricket.
What was the decision?
When India became independent, the new government did not adopt its constitution until it recognized the British Raj as the King of India. While the Congress Party wanted to make India a republic and sever all ties with the British Raj, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Opposition Leader Winston Churchill offered India to remain part of the Commonwealth.
Congress protested, but Nehru did not agree
It is said that the Congress refused to be a part of the Commonwealth of India. He believed that there should be no political or constitutional relationship with the British Crown after independence. An India Today report has quoted an excerpt from journalist Mihir Bose’s book ‘Neve Waves: The Extraordinary Story of Indian Cricket’.
The author explains in the book that Churchill suggested that even if India became a republic, it could remain part of the Commonwealth as a republic and accept a king. Now Nehru did not entirely like this suggestion, but he agreed for India to remain in the Commonwealth. The special thing is that the then senior leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel also opposed it.
How has this decision benefited cricket?
Bose writes that the Imperial Cricket Conference met at Lord’s on 19 July 1948. It was then decided that India should remain a part of the ICC, but only on a temporary basis. The decision on India’s ICC membership was to be reconsidered after two years. Now ICC Rule 5 states that if a country is no longer part of the British Commonwealth, that country’s membership ceases.
When the ICC reconvened in 1950, India had adopted its own constitution and was a member of the Commonwealth, but the British monarchy had no power over its government. The ICC made India a permanent member assuring its membership of the Commonwealth.