IF it is an across-the-Board improvement in our cricket affairs you expect, there is no man better equipped to provide it than Raj Singh Dungarpur. In fact, I cannot remember a Cricket Board President who presents a better blend of savoirfaire and savoir-vivre. He is the total cricketperson, is 'Rajsinhji M. K. of Dungarpur.' That is how the Mumbai telephone directory lists him, the 'M.K.' part of it standing for 'Maharaj Kumar.'

Raj's princely connection with the Nawab of Pataudi led to a major upheaval, on January 8, 1971, in the sacred precincts of the Cricket Club of India. For that was where Tiger Pataudi was deposed as India's captain by Vijay Merchant's casting vote. The vibes between Merchant and Dungarpur, naturally, were none too good for a couple of years after that watershed-marking happening in our cricket.

But when the future of the Brabourne Stadium itself, as a Test centre, was threatened, Raj Singh Dungarpur was all the way with the then CCI President, Vijay Merchant, in seeing that big cricket remained at the ground so ambiently designed for it. That Raj Singh could not ultimately stop Test cricket from shifting to the Wankhede Stadium did not deter him, in later years, from showing the Bombay Cricket Association bigwigs the way out of the impasse, when an internal club dispute threatened the smooth conduct of big cricket at the fledgeling venue.

That is Raj Singh all over, the man who has all along known how to win friends outside the Cricket Board and influence people inside it. His flair for the right gesture marks out Raj Singh Dungarpur as a cricket personality distinct from any I have met. Raj Singh has, in his time, been a player, a commentator, a selector, a manager; and is, now, the President of the BCCI as of the CCI. Of course, he made enemies along the way. But they never remained enemies for long. And that is a measure of the resilience of the man.

If there is one chip on his shoulder that Raj Singh has not been able to shrug off, it is the theme repeatedly brought up by our international players of his having never performed in a Test match for India. ''Raj Singh was strongly in contention to play for India as an opening bowler. Wasn't he?'' a young reporter once asked me. I had to disillusion the lad. Had the reporter approached Raj Singh himself, the man would have been the first to admit that there never was any question of his playing for India that Rajasthan and Central Zone remained the extent of Dungarpur's performing ambition.

I have discerned a certain awe in young reporters about approaching Raj Singh direct. This is odd, seeing that there is to this day, when he is President of the Cricket Board no more accessible man in the game. Raj Singh Dungarpur lives for cricket. And will die with his cricket boots on, for he never really did take them off. There are any number of points that can be notched against him. But this is neither the time nor the occasion to muckrake, it is a time when Raj Singh himself is asking us, with him, to look forward.

Young India, even under Sachin Tendulkar, has not been performing to its true potential and this is something that deeply disturbs Raj Singh. He is totally unimpressed by the argument that three members of his new selection committee have not played a Test. Only Raj's inborn diplomacy stops him from drawing attention to the fact that even the present Chairman of Selectors, Ramakant Desai, did not take a single wicket in any match, Test or otherwise, on the 1967-68 visit to Australia, returning tour figures of 49-2-221-0.

Raj Singh sincerely believes that you do not need a Test-playing background to see through the essence of what ails Indian cricket. Man for man, he can, technically, take on any player who has played even 25 Tests. His insights into the subtleties of the game only those who have closely interacted with him know, Raj's idea of the ideal selector is one who is able to articulate his thoughts lucidly and tellingly. In short, one who is a selectorial man of ideas. Ideas, not merely in the air, but ideas that work on the cricket ground.

The cynical will argue that we have seen a number of Raj Singh's ideas at work and not all of them yielded fruit. But at least Raj had the vision and daring to venture to execute those ideas. Remember, but for Raj Singh, neither Krishnamachari Srikkanth, nor Mohammed Azharuddin, nor even Sachin Tendulkar would have become captain of India, when each one of them did. Raj Singh's double initiative in picking Tendulkar as player and Srikkanth as captain, for the late-1989 tour of Pakistan, has never been given its true due. Raj Singh was the moving spirit behind seeing that Srikkanth, as captain, had also the right manager-coach in Chandu Borde, a thinker-doer whose tactical brain power should never have been lost to Indian cricket.

Yet Raj Singh felt most disappointed when Srikkanth, upon being made captain after having missed (through injury) all four Tests in the West Indies early in 1989, told Dungarpur, immediately after team selection for the Pakistan tour: ''I'm very happy with the side you have given me, now what about solving the players' payment problems?'

Coming from uncaring Srikkanth, this was a culture shock for Raj Singh. He knew Srikkanth had been 'set up' to say what he did by the seniors in, and not in, the Indian team for the Pakistan tour. Even so, Raj Singh expected Srikkanth to think least of payment at a point when we had to take on Pakistan on its own daunting heath.

Raj Singh well knew Srikkanth was one player least concerned about payment. But the fact that the new Indian skipper should have chosen to raise no matter at whose instance the point at all (in the ill- timed manner characteristic of Srikkanth) was something that came as gall and wormwood to Raj Singh, filling him with a certain sadness. It is my conviction that Srik- kanth would not have been jettisoned as India's captain, following one bad series after drawing all four Tests in hostile Pakistan, if he had not come up with that misplaced query, so out of sync with his cricketing persona.

To Raj Singh, the game is greater than the prize even today, when he has resignedly accepted money as the root of all cricketing evil. I was in the commentator's box with Raj Singh at the Wankhede Stadium, early in 1979. Impishly, I drew his attention, on the air, to the fact that, behind where we were seated, were those floodlights at the Bombay Hockey Association ground. ''Isn't it just a matter of time, Raj, seeing how India is doing in hockey, before those foodlights are transplanted here at the Wankhede Stadium?'' I interposed.

Raj Singh, gifted with an arid sense of humour, instantly responded with: ''I know those lights are there, behind ample me. And I hope they remain behind me for all time, that they never come here or to any cricket ground in India!''

Some 17 years after he said that, Raj Singh is reconciled to the fact that those lights have meant more money than runs for our cricket and cricketers. His endeavour now is to see whether he can do anything to correct this 'imbalance' of payment. But Raj Singh is no longer a dreamer. The trend of cricket- ing events over the last 15 years have made him a pragmatist. For all that, his enthusiasm for the real game of cricket remains undimmed. To him, Test cricket is an end in itself one-day cricket but a means to that end. And the means justify the end, as Raj Singh sees it!

What is remarkable about Raj Singh is not only his sustained stake in the game over the last 40 years, but his sense of idealism. He is still old-fashioned enough to expect an unlimited level of commitment from those donning India's colours in return for the unlimited money our players now make out of the game. He is crystal clear that they must put as much into the game as they take out of it.

It is the kind of enduring commitment he spotted in Madan Lal that saw Raj Singh, even without informing the man, plump for the Delhi all-rounder as the new full-time coach of the Indian team. Those who have seen Raj Singh perform as a player will agree that commitment was never an area in which he fell short. It was his ardour and drive that motivated Rajastan into the final of the Ranji Trophy all but once between 1960-61 and 1966-67. On each one of those six ocassions on which Rajasthan made it into the final, it met its match in Bombay, something that always remained a sore spot with Raj Singh.

Raj therefore took it upon himself to mastermind Madras when that team became the next one to confront Bombay in the Ranji Trophy final at the Brabourne Stadium. Raj Singh was a dispirited spectator, for a while on February 16, 1968, as Madras, batting first under P. K. Belliappa, made a hash of it. As Belliappa (2), K. R. Rajagopal (1) and A. G. Milka Singh (1) fell to Indian prospect Arun Varde, as Michael Dalvi mindlessly ran himself out for 16, Madras looked set for a merry leather- hunt at the hands of Bombay. But Raj Singh's eyes lit up as R. Prabhakar (67) and C. K. Bhaskar (ultimately 76 not out) put on 87 for the ninth wicket for Madras to finish, unexpectedly, with a total of 258.

Even so, only the robust optimism of Raj Singh could envision, in that total of 258, a chance for Madras against the batting might of Bombay a might intact even in the absence of Wadekar, Sardesai, Engineer and Nadkarni, all four away on (Australasian) tour. But then something happened that made Raj Singh look entirely justified in spending so much of his time in the Madras dressing-room, telling Belliappa and co all about how to thwart every move, on the field, of Rajasthan's old enemy, Bombay. The enemy's enemy, Madras, was now Raj's friend! All the more so from the point at which Ashok Mankad stayed gracelessly put, when he was clearly out, caught at wide mid-on, the ball having just lobbed off his bat to the fielder there. Bombay, by that stage, had lost Sudhir Naik (4), Vijay Bhosle (0) and Madhav Apte (10), so that the Madras score of 258 was not looking all that inadequate.

This was when Ashok Mankad, still to enter double figures, was seen to put his left palm to his mouth a clear sign that he had lapsed in concentration to dolly that catch to wide midon. But Mankad did not walk, there was no appeal forthcoming from the Madras fielders for a catch and I faced a distinct moment of embarrassment, being on the air. Those days the umpire's decision was final for the commentator. But here I could not be certain, in that split-second from that distance, whether there had been at least a muffled appeal by Madras. For the rest, it was clear to me that it was a straight-forward catch, but the AIR code dissuaded me from offering any such comment. Ashok Mankad never looked back from that point, playing a great knock of 112 to all but take the match away from Madras.

I took the point about Mankad's being out, caught, to the two umpires later. But they laughed it off, demanding to know where they came into the picture when the Madras team had not apealed at all! Feeling as outraged about the thing as Raj Singh did, I took the matter to catcher Satwender Singh himself, wondering why he (and his team) had not bothered to appeal at all. ''There was no need to appeal!'' retorted the soft-spoken Satwender. ''The batsman knew he had hit a straight catch, so he had to walk, that's all!''

I knew, in that moment, that Satwender Singh was too decent to go too far in this game in which Ashok Mankad asked for no quarter, but gave none either. Raj Singh could not bring himself to rationalise that 'catch' the way I did. From that crunch point, Raj Singh was ceaseless in his counselling of how Madras should go about putting it across Bombay, after having conceded a lead of but 54 in the first innings. And Madras verily looked poised to win the Ranji Trophy after a lapse of 13 years, as V. V. Kumar and S. Venkatraghavan (incredibly not touring Australia) had Bombay on the run. Indeed, needing 249 to win that final outright, Manohar Hardikar's team was 109 for five at one point, with two full sessions to bat out.

Maybe it was not entirely the strategy dictated by Raj Singh that had brought Madras to this winnable position. But the back-up (in terms of knowhow) provided by Raj Singh was tremendous. If Manohar Hardikar (62 not out) found in Eknath Solkar (55 not out) the stripling to stay with him, it was just hard lines for Madras. As Hardikar's Bombay finished at 225 for five (to wrest the Ranji Trophy for 10th successive time), the visitors' journey from Madras to Bombay, via Rajasthan, had come unstuck. Raj Singh had to settle, at the end of it all, for his time-honoured tag of 'a great trier.'

Today, some 28 years later, what strikes you about Raj Singh is his abiding passion for the game. He will go down as the 'The Admirable Crichton' of our cricket. Living on the same Marine Drive front as I did, Raj Singh was an inevitable happening on my morning walk. And Raj was not Raj if our morning walk was not interrupted by a hectic half-hour discussion on cricket as the prince of all games.

For one of his stock, Raj Singh has always been refreshingly uninhibited in his outlook. I recall running into him at a song recording, some 25 years, ago. ''A stranger in these parts!'' I was on the point of saying to Raj, when ace composer Naushad Ali engaged me in a spot conversation. Raj Singh looked on, fascinated. And, when I got back to Raj, he said, looking deferentially at the man; ''You know Naushad Saab so well, I have always admired him as a composing giant, he has been my idol since childhood.''

I promptly introduced Naushad and Raj Singh to each other. And Raj was effusive in communicating his sense of fulfilment. This is another trait of the man, his unfailing courtesy and polish. Raj Singh is as open about his pet likes as he is about his pet hates.

His pet hates have attracted much flak over the years. Even now, when he is the new Board President, Raj Singh knows he is going to be blamed for certain things. But it has never been like Raj to escape responsibility for things going the way they do. He will never go along with an idea merely to win cheap popularity. He is unbelievably outspoken for one who has, for long, formed an integral part of the Cricket Board. It is a Board in which silence is golden. But, for Raj, speech is silver! For long was Sunil Gavaskar against Raj Singh. But even Sunny was won over in the end at least to the extent a man forthright could be. Who could have imagined Sunny and Raj coming together, inside the Cricket Board councils, to defuse the Sidhu crisis?

Likewise, Mohinder Amarnath once came out strongly against Raj Singh on the cover of a leading magazine. But Mohinder later found himself deftly neutralised, as Raj Singh proved instrumental in seeing that Lala Amarnath became the first vintage veteran to benefit (Rs. 2 lakhs) from the Cricket Board's new 'dispensation'.

His adversaries will dismiss this as part of ''the game Raj Singh always plays''. But even his worst enemy dare not deny that Raj Singh is for the game in the grand sum.

I was proceeding to Madras to cover the January 1975 fourth Test against Lloyd's West Indies. I espied Raj Singh in a corner of the plane and found the seat next to him to be vacant. I swiftly moved in by his side and, for the next two hours, it was cricket, rewarding cricket, all the way. Mind you, I had reason then to believe that Raj Singh had not been too well disposed towards me. But if there were any such hard feelings, they vanished the moment I backed Tiger Pataudi afresh, as the man to take over from Ajit Wadekar, following our calamitous 1974 tour of England.

As that air journey approached its end, Raj enquired in which hotel I was going to be put up, whether he could offer me a lift. I asked, in return, in which direction of Madras he was going. And Raj's reply: ''I'm going straight to Chepauk to see our boys practise! The cricket ground always is my first port of call.''

I told Raj, in all honesty, that Chepauk was the place for which I, too, was headed. What came out, in that moment, was Raj's tremendous involvement with the game. He was a selector by then, yet he was childlike in his eagerness to get to the ground.

The ground on which, on that first day of the Madras Test, G. R. Visvanath came up with a pedigree 97 not out against an Andy Roberts bowling with rare devil. And Raj Singh's response to that class knock was spontaneous. ''I don't know about you,'' he said, ''You have seen so many more great Indian batsmen perform than I have; but this 97 not out by Vishy is the greatest innings I have seen an Indian play. Vishy, I say, is in the same category as Greg Chappell.'' It was a super knock by Visvanath, no doubt, but the point about Raj Singh is that he becomes totally participative in any great performance he witnesses. And Vishy's knock, at that point was the greatest for Raj because it was an innings played for India and India alone.

That 1974-75 series against the West Indies was the one in which Raj Singh was supposed to have influenced Parthasarathy Sharma's inclusion in the Indian eleven. Parthasarathy (so named by his father after his dear friend) made 54 and 49, on the featherbed at Ferozshah Kotla in the second Test. But Sharma found the going infinitely harder on the pacier Eden Gardens wicket in the next Test. Bowled by Bernard Julien for 6 in the first innings, Sharma had just got to 9 in the second essay, when he played a ball to Lloyd at cover and took off. When he was sent back and was run out by Lloyd's arrow throw, Raj Singh was unsparing in his assessment of his protege.

''May be there was a quick run there,'' I suggested leadingly. Raj Singh's counter; ''What? A run when you have played the ball straight to the greatest cover-point in the world? Tell me another!''

Whereupon I let the point about Sharma's having, perhaps, studiedly run himself out pass. But put any question to Raj Singh and he will field it with a straight face. Like the time when Bapu Nadkarni, as our middle-class chairman of selectors, drew Raj Singh's attention during a general discussion, to the fact that milk was selling at 12 rupees a litre. Now the price of milk was, of course, a matter of supreme unconcern to Raj, his knowledge here stopped with the the milkshake served at the CCI. But Nadkarni looked concerned and Raj felt he had to empathise with him. ''What, milk at 12 rupees a litre?'' en- quired Raj gravely ''Really''it's too much!

I sensed, in that moment, that Raj Singh Dungarpur had missed his vocation. He could have been one of our finest actors like Sir Charles Aubrey Smith. ''as well known in Hollywood as he was at Lord's.'' Instead Raj Singh ends up as a mere Board President as well known at St. John's Wood as he is at the Brabourne Stadium.

Source: The Hindu