Indian cricketers should stop being difficult: Bishen Bedi

Bishan Singh Bedi's is not an opinion people connected to controversial issues want to hear. But you cannot ignore his pungent views on aspects he feels strongly about.

Though he insists that he needs to understand the anti-doping controversy which has hit Indian cricket, better, he is aghast that the Indian players have refused to give in to the whereabouts clause in the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines where sportspersons are expected to fill out details of their whereabouts in order to be tested.

MiD DAY caught up with the former India captain over the phone from London where he is holidaying.
Excerpts from an interview:

What do you make of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) whereabouts clause which the Indian cricketers have a problem with?
Others are doing it, tennis players are doing it, golfers are adhering to it. So I suppose they (cricketers) should fall in place.

But they feel this comes in the way of their privacy...
Nobody is questioning their privacy. This is about whereabouts. I think they should toe the line. They shouldn't behave difficult. Cricket has to be seen to be clean as a sport.

Do cricketers need to be treated differently since they play a team sport?
Cricketers are not very different from other athletes. The WADA guidelines are set for sports people and cricket is an international sport although it may not be an Olympic one. However, I would like to go through the entire guidelines before passing judgement. On the surface, this looks very harmless. It's certainly not provocative. You have to accept it.

BCCI has shown their uncompromising ways by supporting its players...
I think they are falling away from the line. I saw president Shashank Manohar siding with the players but as I said, I would like to look at this deeper.

An Olympian Adille Sumariwala said recently that cricket should be called entertainment and not a sport if their players don't want to follow international guidelines. Your comment?

It is a sport. How can you call it entertainment? There is competitionu00a0bat versus ball; ball versus bat.

Harbhajan Singh slammed other sportspersons who criticised cricketers for not agreeing to the WADA clause. Mind your own business, he is reported to have said...
That is being too self-centred. You have to look at yourselves as international sports people like the others and be proud of it; not self centred.

That you don't want other sportspersons to talk about it is too narrow a view.