Game enough, Gentlemen?

As Cricket’s ‘establishment’ moves in to administer the final push that will send the ICL spiraling into oblivion, it appears the time is ripe for an obituary. The BCCI’s recent offer of ‘amnesty’ to those involved in the rebel league has widely been seen as the final nail in the coffin of an ill fated David whose Goliath was always going to be too strong.        

But so long as it still breathes, perhaps an analysis of it’s predicament would be more appropriate.

For an enterprise like the ICL to be successful there are two alternatives, offer the highest quality of an existing product or offer something entirely new and groundbreaking.

In the first case the ICL is laid in a dead stymie by the BCCI – ICC nexus which ensures that they don’t get within arm’s length of any high profile player barring the ones they already have. Kapil Dev can sermonize all he likes about the league’s purpose being to give young talent a chance, but if giving them a chance effectively ensures they never play for their country, it can hardly be counted as the league’s raison d’etre. And whatever good they do for young cricketers is entirely dependent on their ability to remain a commercially viable proposition. Not even Lt Col Dev Nikhanj would suggest that the league is an exercise in altruism.

It may be argued that the ICL does fulfill the latter criterion; they came up with the idea of regional teams in India to generate localized fan bases, the idea of turning the whole game into a sort of song and dance carnival, the idea of mixing players from different nationalities.

But all this is entirely nullified by the fact that the IPL does it much better. The ICL in comparison looks distinctly second grade. Pushing for survival through improvement on these fronts would be an effort in futility.

But perhaps there is a different way for the ICL to capture the headlines again. An avenue unexplored thus far. When it is said that it is impossible for the ICL to sign a good high profile player from anywhere in the cricketing world, it is easily forgotten that what is being spoken of is only half the cricketing world.

Yes indeed. Reason it out carefully, what stops the ICL from signing Claire Taylor, Isa Guha, Mithali Raj, Charlotte Edwards or Jhulan Goswamy?

At this point you are probably thinking the writer is suffering from a touch of the sun. I will therefore offer a complete explanation. The recent women’s World Cup, despite being treated with only tepid interest by the media, served to bring women’s cricket into the public eye. The cricket, while evidently lacking the forcefulness of the male version certainly wasn’t a joke. Indeed, it had in spades the subtlety that has largely disappeared from the men’s game.

We could argue endlessly about whether the women have the ability to mix it with the men. Or we could try and find out. Cricket has long been stifled by the stuffed shirts of the English administration who have firmly refused to consider the idea of allowing women to compete alongside men. But if the last few years have shown us anything it is this: giving the so called purist’s views the bum’s rush is a sound and prudent move.

And the ICL is ideally placed to make it happen. The ICC would disapprove strongly. Let them eat cake! After all the trouble they’ve given the ICL the opportunity to give some back would, I’m sure be welcomed. Certainly, the ICL isn’t legally bound to follow the ICC’s rules in any way.

The ICC would try and prevent players who join from playing for their countries, but they could never compete with the still substantial monetary power of the ICL. The women cricketers are nowhere near as well paid as their male counterparts and an opportunity to participate in such a groundbreaking experiment in combination with healthy contracts would certainly tempt plenty of them. Perhaps as a starter, two or three women players could be assigned to each team and a stipulation introduced that every starting eleven must have at least one woman in it.

From a commercial point of view the thing is certain to be a runaway hit. The media would leap on it with relish. Heated debates would ensue. Imagine Jhulan Goswami forcing Brian Lara to defend, or Claire Taylor comfortably negotiating anything the bowlers can throw at her. Who wouldn’t want to watch it ? Desperate attempts are being made by the IPL to capture a female audience through concerts, women anchors and whatnot. Putting the women on the field would achieve that more effectively for the ICL, even without the accompanying circus.

And the icing on the cake would be that the IPL, being an ICC recognized competition could never replicate it. The laws just wouldn’t allow it. And if it were to be legalized, that would be a paradigm shift not just for cricket but for sport in general. Ultimately, and more than a tad ironically, it could provide a huge fillip to the globalization of the gentleman’s game. And the ICL would have left quite a legacy. 

The beginning of the end of Test cricket is here

The following is something I wrote over a year ago at the time of the inaugural IPL auction. Special thanks to Messrs Gayle and Tait for making it somewhat relevant again.

It is not without irony that the announcement by the English Premier League of plans to play an extra round of fixtures abroad should come so soon after the launch of cricket’s Indian Premier League.

As testament to modern sport’s impending submersion into the quagmire of opportunistic capitalism, no finer instances can be had than these. Yet the sheer brazenness with which these ‘revolutionary concepts’ are introduced, the ludicrous explanations of the need for these monstrous afflictions and the final realization of the ultimate greed driving them leaves one gasping for air.

Economists and business-people exclaim that it’s been coming for ages and then proceed to sound off about demand and supply, the quality of the ‘product’ and maximization of revenue.

A ‘product’?

To those guiding it’s destiny today, sport it appears, is no different from toilet paper or a sharp knife. It is a product, to be bunged into boxes, marketed and sold in whichever way as to maximize profit. Beautiful, capricious, uplifting sport is being methodically, mercilessly squeezed, it’s essence collected, adulterated and sold by the bottle.

So who stands to gain the most?

Fairly obvious, really. Let us look at the case of the Indian Premier League. The common cricket fan is by no means a stakeholder in this venture. The only cricketers who stand to make a sizable packet are the already grossly overpaid ’superstars’ of the Indian team and the handful of foreign imports. But mostly the cash generated will serve only to further inflate the bursting coffers of the BCCI and a handful of individuals who are scarcely in dire need of the stuff.

And what of the effect on the game itself? If the IPL grows as the ‘all knowing ones’ predict and the BCCI throws some of its loose change at the other cricket boards, it could well take up most of the cricketing calendar. Money will dictate that all cricketers become Twenty20 specialists and Test cricket will be given a swift burial, mourned by all.

The character of the game will irrevocably change and, in a decade, flashing lights, bright colours, wildly swinging bats, three-hour games could well be all that cricket will be reduced to.

And what price the English premier football league? Predictably, a very stiff one. It is the most successful football league in the world (here read success = $$$$) whose revenue figures move steeply upwards every year. Apparently not steeply enough. Hence the contemptibly absurd idea of playing an extra round of matches outside the British isles.

Any pretence that this idea is about anything other than money is ridiculous in the extreme. Again in this case, the only people who stand to make any substantial gains are the premier league and particularly its big clubs. None of the club’s fans back home will see a dime and football in England below the premier league will remain entirely unaffected.

So then, if they start playing one fixture abroad, why not two? Then again, five is a good figure. Heck, why not just call yourselves “The Scudamore Circus” and hit the road. One night in Tokyo, the next in New York! Of all the nonsensical dim-witted plots ever hatched, this one’s numero uno. Thankfully it seems football’s governing bodies still maintain some vestiges of sanity and have opposed the idea. So maybe the circus won’t be rolling into town after all.

It is of course essential that people involved in sport full-time make a decent living out of it. But when the primary purpose of sport becomes monetary gain, things go too far. It’s a thin line between the sufficient and the excessive which we would do well to stay within.

For by crossing it, we rob sport of its considerable glory and leave ourselves much poorer for it, whatever anyone’s bank balance may say.