India, June 9 -- The Trinamool Congress's crisis has an unlikely sub-plot. Three familiar names from Indian cricket are caught up in it, and each is standing in a different corner.

The most vocal is Kirti Azad, a member of India's 1983 World Cup-winning side and now the TMC's Bardhaman-Durgapur MP, who has emerged as one of Mamata Banerjee's fiercest defenders against the rebels. Originally from Bihar but a longtime leader with political roots in many places, Azad used to be an all-rounder - a right-hand batter and an aggressive right-arm off-break bowler.

Azad has dismissed the rebels' claim of having 20 MPs with them. He called it "the fake and fabricated narrative of the dirty tricks department of BJP," insisting only 13 had attended...