Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
The world of cricket continues it's topsy-turvy roller-coaster ride, with bizarre twists and turns happening at rapid pace, just like grey blurred CDs with white-clad men doing dark deeds with green-bucks surfacing daily from our esteemed Members of Parliament. The festivities are so frenetic and high -pitched I wonder if it is a sequel to the Monsoon Wedding.
The latest piece of an entertainment snippet from the BCCI is that they are very miffed with portly Arjuna Ranatunga, the powerful big-wig of the Sri Lankan cricket board and of course, one of the shrewdest minds on the field. I will never ever forget his cheeky-running around while batting despite the gargantuan body mass he transported , and his unflappable demeanor at most times, even when Shane Warne was at hand-shaking distance. Also, like most plump people, he has a disarming pleasantness around him. Continue reading below
Apparently, Ranatunga's statement that the Sri Lankan Board has not got any participatory fee for allowing it's players to take part in the cricket carnival called IPL T20 has not been favorably received by Lalit Modi, Sharad Pawar and gang. Big Brother is exceedingly upset. But frankly, isn't Ranatunga raising an issue that ought to be addressed by ICC itself, to begin with?
Let's be honest, would an IPL with just local players sell and draw crowds? The answer is an emphatic NO, because the unique USP is the presence of foreign players playing alongside their native counterparts. Now remove Shane Warne and Shane Watson, M Muralitharan and M Jayawardene , Ricky Ponting and Shaun Marsh, Shoaib Akhthar and Shahid Afridi, amongst several others, and IPL will be like staging Oceans Eleven with just George Clooney in it. It will lack it's core essence of multi-national hetrogenity.
Secondly, since this IPL circus has been given the holy benedictions of the ICC as an " international club tournament", how can BCCI alone profiteer from all the cash earnings? And why, I would like to ask, is the ICC silently allowing an international sport to be so blatantly hijacked? In fact, I have raised this subject several times before, and Ranatunga is precisely hammering on the same issue. It makes logical business sense. In fact, since BCCI literally bullies and harangues it's own players on their contractual obligations, why can't Ranatunga and several other international board chiefs justifiably demand a share based on their proportional player representation from BCCI coffers? It's a fair deal.
This explains why Arjuna has been telling his players ( I am surprised how he has not exercised a more authoritarian tenor, honestly ) to boycott the IPL , and instead focus on the England tour. He should risk a player revolt in Sri Lanka, but continue with the official Test tour, as that will send a strong message to the entire cricketing establishment and above all, the IPL dictators.
Currently, BCCI can easily buy-out cricket boards , as many of them are financially bankrupt ( like Sri Lanka as well). Zimbabwe is another remarkable example of a cash-strapped , defunct Board, which through a covert deal was allowed to survive. Zimbabwe cricket board which symbolises pathetic administration and zero interest in player development flourished in exchange for a political vote in ICC elections. The ICC is singularly responsible for genuflecting with such professional ease in front of the commercial muscle of BCCI. It is hardly surprising that with ECB locking horns and thorns with BCCI, a vertical split is an imminent possibility , and frankly, it has assumed racial overtones.
Forget globalisation of cricket. Right now, ICC has a more Herculean threat; the rapid Indianisation of world cricket.
