Race for the
big league

The face of Indian cricket may never be the same. The hold that the BCCI wields over the game and the players may never be vice-like any more. The hype about international cricket, sponsorship and telecast bids may never be like anything before. All this, if the Indian Cricket League, a body that has decided to stand up to the BCCI and is all set to organise parallel cricket, has its way.
Abhijit Chatterjee takes a close look at the clash between the BCCI and the ICL

FOR the first time since it came into being, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is finally coming face to face with somebody willing to challenge its monopoly of organising cricket in the country. Yet to take off, the Indian Cricket League (ICL) has woken up the BCCI from its slumber with the older body announcing a slew of facilities for its players in an effort to keep its flock together. How much will it succeed only time can say. But then if it is about playing cricket then these BCCI sops might not work for too long a period, specially for players who have the talent but cannot catch the eye of the BCCI national selectors for various reasons.

Over the years, the BCCI has not shown any transparency either in its team selection, appointment of its various committees, the way it picks it coaches, specially the foreign ones and sponsors or, at times, even the way it has selected the venues for its international matches. All this, hopefully should change, if not immediately then slowly. Because if the BCCI does not do so then the trickle of 44 players who have initially joined the ICL may become a flood with more and more players, specially those who have very faint hopes of ever playing for the country in the current dispensation, opting for the moolah, instead of international glory which in any case will never be theirs.

Why is it that it is only the BCCI that has the exclusive right to organise cricket in India. Anybody wanting to host a cricket match must go hat in hand to the BCCI to seek permission even when the national body makes no monetary contribution to the organiser of the match. Why is it that the BCCI is the custodian of all things cricket and nobody dared to tinker with it? Even elections to the BCCI has become an immense powerplay with politicians of various hues and leanings coming together to keep out the genuine followers and promoters of the game. Why is it that year after year the BCCI elects persons who have not played the game even up to a certain level? How many players have held office in the BCCI and how many wheelers and dealers have held the power? In fact, one gets a feeling that the ICL might have become what it is threatening to become only due to the confrontational stand taken by the BCCI over the past couple of months.

The ICL might have become a non-starter only if the BCCI had shown some magnanimity by accepting Zee Television’s plea to host the Twenty20 tournament, a version of the game which has yet to enthuse the BCCI. The country has seen only one twenty20 tournament so far and the national team selected for the first Twenty20 World Cup to be held in South Africa next month was selected more on fitness and the age factor than on cricket acumen. Otherwise, the exclusion of Punjab’s Dinesh Mongia who has the most experience in playing Twenty20 tournament but was kept out from even the list of 30 players initially shortlisted by the BCCI is difficult to explain.

For starters, stalwarts of Indian cricket Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and current captain Rahul Dravid opted out of the Twenty20 World Cup team taking the plea of the age factor. Two other stalwarts who have contributed immensely to India’s recent international success, Anil Kumble and V.V.S. Laxman, have not found a place in the one-day squad for sometime, the former due to form and the latter due to his own decision.

One must give full marks to Kapil Dev, chief of ICL’s executive board, to have roped in so many players, specially from India, for the new venture. Detractors might say that none of the Indian players picked up by the ICL had a realistic chance to play for the country at this current juncture. But then one has to acknowledge that these players have taken on the BCCI full blast not knowing what the future holds for them.

One thing which has helped the players decide in favour of the ICL is the money being offered by the new body. The kind of money being offered by the ICL is something which the BCCI cannot match, at least for the time being. But even today the ICL is yet to fully open its cards. For one, it has still to rope in another 30 to 40 players if its plans of a six-team inter-city league is to become a reality. Also, it is still to decide on the venues and the facilities to be put up in place. Of course, the ICL can pick up the offer of Railway Minister Lalu Yadav to use the railway stadiums across the country but then it has to put up the lights (no railway stadium has floodlight facilities) and other infrastructure in place before matches can be played.

But to be fair to the BCCI it must not be forgotten that the cricketing infrastructure in the country is due to the untiring effort of the honorary members of the BCCI who had the vision to decide what the game needs. Also, it must be remembered that the players who have opted for the ICL have developed over the years due to the system put in place by the BCCI, be it the age group tournaments or be it the training and coaching camps conducted by the affiliated units of the BCCI. The ICL may have earmarked Rs 100 crore for their venture but they have not yet spelt out how they plan to nurture talent or how the likes of Erapalli Prasanna will help in the coaching process. Also, with their cricket restricted to just about a month what will all these players do for the remaining days of the year.

It is too early to say whether the ICL will leave any lasting impact on the current cricket scenario in the country. But four top Ranji teams, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Hyderabad, have each lost at least half a dozen players, some of whom had the potential to go beyond Ranji Trophy. Therefore, these teams might find it difficult to put in place a good squad for this year’s Ranji Trophy championship.

The ICL challenge to the BCCI will also prove how resilient the BCCI system is and how good are the players who have opted to play in the board tournament. But with more players likely to join up the ICL, this season’s Ranji Trophy might well turn out to be a non-starter with about 70-80 first class cricketers missing from the BCCI tournament. Then can one explain from where will the BCCI hunt for talent?

Board threat

The BCCI is saying repeatedly that players associated with the ICL will never be able to play in any board-sanctioned tournament. If that be so then what would the board do to look for fresh talent for its various teams because the likes of Tendulkar and Ganguly will not last for ever And what mechanism will they put in place to stop the flow of players who once trained and nurtured by the BCCI decide to walk across and join the ICL, provided of course the ICL is there to stay.

The ICL is banking on its money power but much will depend on the way it manages its tournaments. Some of the players picked up by the ICL are surely not as fleet-footed as one would expect players in the twenty20 format. The problem can probably be solved by some smart packaging and it is here that the likes of Tony Greig and Dean Jones will earn huge pay packets.

Also, the BCCI has not shown foresight by repeatedly saying that those who opt to join the ICL will not be eligible for pension and other benefits from the board. This threat has been specially galling to the ordinary follower of the game because the BCCI pension for say Kapil Dev or Kiran More is for the service they have rendered to the game years ago. Now if they seek some other employment, how can the BCCI stop the pension. The same applies to players like Sandeep Patil, Balwinder Singh Sandhu or Prasanna, people who gave up playing years ago and who are getting pension for the services they have rendered in the past. It is obvious that some saner counsel should prevail since this BCCI threat sounds more like that of a bully rather than that of seasoned politicians who abound in the board.

Some are of the view that the fight, if one may call it so, between the BCCI and the ICL is all about cricket telecast. But this fight cannot be decided overnight since the BCCI has already signed a longtime contract with Nimbus. But as of now there seems to be no simplistic solution to a crisis which was in the making for a long time, but something the BCCI was not willing to visualise.

League titbits The ICL has been set up with a corpus of Rs 100 crore. It will be the richest professional league in the country with an annual prize money of Rs 4.4 crore. Its inaugural Twenty20 tournament will begin in October. The first edition will feature six teams, with names like Bombay Jets and Madras Heat The number of teams will be increased to 12 over the next three years. Each team will be coached by a former India player and comprise six international cricketers (including foreigners) and eight budding domestic players. The International Cricket Council will hold a meeting in September to decide whether to officially sanction the league. While the ICL is facing opposition from the BCCI, the planned Stanford Twenty20 tournament in the Caribbean has the support of the West Indies Cricket Board, which has even included the event in its domestic calendar.