This article is about the Indian board and IPL. On the 6th of June 2020, I read one article on The Times of India stating that the Indian board is upset with the ICC. The board is angry over the delay in taking a decision regarding the World T20 that is supposed to be held in Australia in the month of October. In normal circumstances, this may not sound that unreasonable. However, all of us are not under normal circumstances. The extraordinary situation that we all are under calls for extraordinary leadership.
Why is the ICC delaying?
It is absolutely understandable if the ICC wants to delay taking a decision regarding going ahead with the tournament or postponing the tournament to a later date to probably next year. The ICC caters to a wide variety of cricket playing nations. They support financially a lot of boards who are already playing tests. They also finance other boards that are not playing tests but are playing the game at a reasonable level. The ICC needs funds to spread the game (although this is debatable. The game does not require more than 12 teams. I will deal with this topic in another post) far and wide. The ICC is trying to bring a lot more nations into the fold.
Now, inorder to achieve their ambition, they need money and lots of them. The ICC do not control the revenue that comes out of bilateral series. It is mostly managed by the hosting nation. They have to depend on world tournaments like ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup & Champions Trophy. These tournaments earns in excess of a few million dollars which will go a long way in improving the finances of the current test playing nations as well as spread the game globally. Despite these tournaments, the ICC is still cash strapped. So it is perfectly justified if the ICC delays the decision right till the beginning of October, especially, when you consider the fact that the tournament will be held in Australia which is among the least of the pandemic affected nation.
Why is the Indian board not pleased?
The Indian board wants to stage the IPL this year. If not a full-blown IPL, they want to stage the IPL over a month’s period. This essentially means that half the games of the actual IPL can be held. It is now certain that the BCCI cares about its finances and finances only. They are least bothered about the safety of the players, the commentators, the ground staff and the camera crew assuming that it will be a closed tournament. BCCI which is probably among the richest sports body in the entire world is worried about losing revenue from a tournament from which only it can gain.
From what I know, the board is not obliged to share the revenue with other boards whose players are also part of the IPL. The board is rolling in billions of dollars and it will be perfectly alright for the board to forego a miniscule part of their revenue. The board do not want to do that. To hell with the safety so long as the board’s coffers are filling all the time.
Ganguly, a disappointment
I have tremendous respect for Ganguly. He is by far the most impressive Indian captain over the last 35 years. I do not want to get into the merits of this argument in this post. I will save it for one of the future posts. The moment Ganguly became the Indian board president, I hoped that the game will get a definite boost. Money will not be the sole criteria the board will be after.
I also hoped that the performance of the Indian team will be of paramount importance for him. Ganguly will ensure that there will sufficient number of players of high quality for every position in every format. A Ganguly who cared a lot about the performance of the team outside the country, who placed lot of importance in how the team and the players fared in difficult tours like Australia, SA & England has downgraded himself to an ordinary board member whose sole motive is profit.
I hope that better sense will prevail. I hope board will not go ahead with their plan of conducting the IPL this year.
Do you think BCCI is correct in going ahead with the IPL in this situation?