Of rattled responses...

Of rattled responses…

Timeline of events :

August 20, 2007 : The “rebel” Indian Cricket League announces the signing of 44 Indian domestic players and six foreign cricketers from Pakistan and South Africa. On the very day, Abdul Razzaq, the Pakistani all-rounder announces his retirement from international cricket, in protest of his omission from the twenty20 World Cup squad. Several young talented cricketers, who represented India at various age-group levels join the ICL in possibly lure of money and an opportunity, risking their India future.

August 21, 2007 : The Board for Control for Cricket in India, reacts in its typical knee-jerk fashion announcing an increase in the per-day fee for players participating in its domestic tournaments. The prize money for winning teams increases almost 7 times. But, having lost what Kapil Dev claimed to be the “cream of the country” to the ICL, this was nothing but on expected lines. Also, the Pakistan Cricket Board follows its neighbour in stating that players who leave their shores to play in the ICL will face a life-ban. The BCCI, sticking to its diktat, sacks Kapil Dev as the Chairman of the National Cricket Academy. And Erapalli Prasanna’s role as Spin Coach with the Karnataka State Cricket Association comes to an end. Since India’s best off-spinner defected to the ICL as a Board member, this again was not a new development.

August 22, 2007 : The ICL makes claims of trying to rope in John Buchanan as the chief coach in the camp to be conducted for its recruits at this resort called Mayajaal in the outskirts of Chennai. The camp is expected to begin from August 29.

August 23, 2007 : The say of intense drama, to say the least, as both parties share the limelight, the BCCI a tad more. In a dramatic development, the BCCI announces its response to the ICL by launching the “PROFESSIONAL CRICKET LEAGUE” – based on the ICL format one presumes. According to a television channel based in Mumbai, Lalit Modi, the BCCI’s vice-president was scheduled to meet the IMG (International Management Group), a sports-event management company that organizes the famous Tata Open, apart from others in India. The discussions with the IMG would revolve around the format of the event. The television channel also claimed that the tournament will involve a mix of domestic and international cricketers. The TV rights would be awarded to aspirants through a bidding process and money being central to the event itself, every team would have a sponsor who would be contracted for five years. And the biggest bombshell dropped by that channel was a subber carrying “Its official. It is Gavaskar versus Kapil”, probably because Sunil Gavaskar is likely to head the PCL or whatever. How credible is that, one doesn’t know? I somehow agree with a television commentator who made a valid point about the manner in which the BCCI is reacting to this whole ICL as lending it more credibility than it probably should have got.

On the other hand, the ICL perhaps won the mind-games today to an extent when Bengal’s Sports Minister came out in support of the rebel league and made a statement allowing the organization to use the Eden Gardens to stage their games. Subhas Chakraborty, the minister in question, spoke to NDTV, a television news channel in India and said, "Whatever facilities we have, we will make available to the boys who have been punished, particularly by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).” (Source: Cricinfo) Chakraborty, if one can recall was supposed to contest the CAB presidential elections last year, but his comrades intervened and was asked to pull out, and eventually the current CAB President Prasun Mukherjee won the race. And the premise may seem a bit anti-Sharad Pawar, as Subhas is known to be a strict Dalmiya loyalist.

What these responses and muddling have done is to bare the BCCI’s inability to handle situations of crisis. For all we knew about Sharad Pawar’s statement in his typical, “ICL is only veteran cricket. People will not come to see them play”, the ICL have reacted and threatened to deprive Indian cricket of some really talented cricketers. And this ego-battle is likely to continue, having taken note of how the BCCI has reacted to this new commercial venture.

Why does the BCCI have time and space for these sort of ventures that hardly cater to the development of cricket in this country ? I mean, if they stood by their cause, they better stick to it ! How many promises did Sharad Pawar come to the helm with sometime late 2005 ? How many have been fulfilled ? Where is the CEO? Where is the professional system that he and his team were about to bring? Or may be he has done it, by including the word “Professional” in his new attempt to capsize the ICL. For now, it wont be wrong to say as my professor in college would, “You are heading for a major disaster in life, font 18, bold and underlined.”

Go and ask the people on the streets and they’d say, “Boss, I don’t care. As long as Indian cricket is not moving forward with these steps, I just don’t bother”. Are these public mudslingings taking Indian cricket forward ? Is this Professional Cricket League or whatever they call it going to make India the number one in International cricket ? Why is there a drastic interest in twenty20 cricket in a country that called it names at the first place ? Is this the beginning of the end of Indian cricket ? I don’t know. But as far as I am concerned, apathy is what I am beginning to develop towards the game in this country.