Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
The world of cricket clearly needs a trust vote. Let me explain.
With just a few weeks left, people are as clueless as punters on the stock market or media prophets on the fate of the government about where the next Champions Trophy ODI cricket tournament will be held. Incidentally, this bi-annual extravaganza is supposed to be a mini-World Cup, no less. So you can very well fathom the extreme confusion reigning in cricket circles, like the self-styled ravaging feudalistic monopoly of Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh. There is literally heavy chaos out there, as Lucknow tries to build an elaborate expressway to Lal Qila. As I pen my obfuscated thoughts , with dark clouds gathering outside my window sill, there is talk of a " vertical split" in world cricket. That's unfortunate. Continue reading below
If every other day Mayawati's some or the other minister is arrested for criminal abduction, in cricket a new farce usually surfaces like the head of an implacable hydra. The ridiculous manner in which the venue for the Champions Trophy is being tossed around like pan-fried noodles, raises a serious issue in terms of where the game is headed. While some countries have expressed their apprehensions in no uncertain terms, and will in all probability boycott the games if they are played in a territory that US-President hopeful Barak Obama threatens to bomb in every campaign speech, England has promised to send a team without a side and a bottom .Clearly, Pakistan is not the favorite cricketing destination at this time. But the problem is that the ICC is allowing a senseless drift instead of taking a decisive action.
Today , apparently, some conference call is supposed to sort out the inextricable mess, but the solution is not so complex after all. I would shift the CT to India ( where both gate traffic and TV TRPs will be higher, and where a certain back-office machinery exists for creating tournament logistics at short-notice) ,and work out a fair compensation plan for Pakistan's loss of net revenue. The BCCI, ICC and PCB need to just sign-off on the revenue-share plan.
I also found the preposterous manner in which the highly dubiously administered Zimbabwe board was allowed a creepy back-door status quo in international cricket for a " compromise deal" which meant that the African nation would be on a self-imposed exile in the next T20 World Cup. Now how is that for a master-stroke? Actually, that hardly creates the " international isolation" that ICC was perhaps aiming for.
The Zimbabwe regime has become a standing and sleeping international joke and has made the beleaguered African country appear as the ultimate personification of a banana republic. The ICC ought to have sent a much stronger and definitive reminder to President (???) Robert Mugabe that global public pressure will mount on him to make suitable rectification to the democratic process in his country. Whether we like it or not, sports engages national attention and patriotic sentiments and can never be totally de-linked from the geo-political realities of our times.
Lastly, I find it in poor, petty taste exhibiting a parochial mind-set that BCCI should ask it's players to ignore county cricket because of the ICL rebel players presence in the same squads. Frankly, that is a fundamental rights violation ( and I do know my constitutional rights and remember my political science classes) ,as it concerns a players career and professional earnings when they are not on official national duty. Several journalists have written loads on the subject, so let me save some web pages here; hard rationale and logical arguments will not work where the primary obsession of the powers-that-be is just plain ego and undiluted authority. We can cry spoonfuls for Piyush Chawla and VVS Laxman, but nothing will really happen. How do you expect individual cricketers to argue or wage a battle against the BCCI?
The need of the hour, and I have been particularly vocal about it , is that the players need their own active and empowered Players Association ( currently it is some defunct body because half their non-playing members have their own axe to grind) . The game is getting increasingly corporatised, cash-rich, media-backed and sponsor-supported. The stakes have never been higher, and on the BCCI Annual Reports the P&L is determined by players performances. That is the bottomline. The players complain about crazy schedules, but officials rudely tell them to shut up. Somebody protests against auctioning players, and some BCCI bloke tells him to pipe down. Anil Kumble, the captain and perhaps the most mature person going around, is given strictures on his writing columns. This has to stop. But it is the players who have to collectively do something about it.
Sure, cricketers are richer today, and why not? If anyone deserves better bank balances today, it is them. But they need to recognize that more important than cash and endorsements, it is their self-respect that matters. They deserve it. They have earned it.
I would suggest that sometime during the Sri Lankan trip, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and Anil Kumble huddle up and contemplate how they can make a Players representation forum happen. Rest assured, a strong Players Association will actually even make the BCCI per force become a more transparent, responsible and professional institution. It will be a win-win, and cut through the mindless controversies which happen at sporadic intervals.
Parliament may have witnessed horse-trading, and a failed attempt by a CBI charge-sheeted multi-millionaire Mayawati to be a PM. But all cricket needs is horse-sense.
