Cricket clips

1. It’s all in the mind’s eye, says Aakash Chopra in the latest installment of his series on cricket from the pov of a player.

2. Peter Roebuck suggests that cricket, like every other sport, needs its majors to sustain audience interest — and if the Champions’ Trophy hasn’t filled that need, it is largely due to the disrespect shown by Australia and England. Tripling the points to be made by winning games at the CT and World Cup level is one interesting suggestion. I’d add one other: limit the field to the six top teams; eight clearly doesn’t fit Roebuck’s prescription of thrilling encounters and no dud games.

3. So the BCCI has realized that it cannot arbitrarily terminate existing contracts, and wisely come to a face-saving accommodation with the IMG [On his Twitter stream, Lalit Modi says the agreement is for the next eight years]. Per the revision, the IMG will be paid Rs 27 crore for its annual services for conducting the IPL, as against the IMG’ demand for Rs 33 crore. Lalit Modi on Twitter says the agreement with IMG is for the next eight years. The six crore downward revision satisfies the associations, which hope to get a slice of the money thus saved — what it leaves unresolved is the larger power struggle pitting Lalit Modi against N Srinivasan. Wait for the next manifestation, like boils on an ailing body. [Earlier IMG-related posts here, here, and here.]

4. An outstanding second part to the Younis Khan interview by Osman Samiuddin. On ODI reform:

We have already changed cricket so much, with Twenty20, super sixes in ODI tournaments, Powerplays in ODIs. If we make so many changes then will it stay the same game? It’s very easy now in a sense. You can decide and pick whether you want to play ODI, Test or Twenty20 cricket. You can get satisfaction from each format, so why the need to change so much?

Some changes, like umpiring referrals, they make sense. That works across the board, and is a good thing. But if you break up an ODI match into four innings, into little pieces, then you are changing the whole thing, it isn’t cricket anymore. It’s like playing American football or something, where you are taking time-outs and some such.

I think we need to promote Test cricket in its own sense, ODI in its own sense and Twenty20 in its own sense. You cannot try and make Tests like Twenty20s or ODIs like Tests. They are separate formats. Promote them equally and separately and appreciate them.

And on the downside of T20s:

In this sense, when I see youngsters today, whoever is preparing, they don’t ever say, “I am about to go and run five laps of the ground, or go for half an hour to the gym.” They say, “We only have to play a three-hour Twenty20 match; we only have to hit shots in that.” Every youngster is thinking this right now: it’s only a three-hour match, so you don’t need to train so much. You just need to hit the ball hard, win a match and take winnings. This is like life – everyone is going for the shortcut. But the shortcut will not always work in life; sometimes you need to work hard for things.

5. Incoming WICB chief Ernest Hilaire says the trick to arresting the meltdown of West Indies cricket lies in learning to work with the players’ association. Nice — but the proof of the pudding, etc. Every new boss WICB has had in recent times has kicked off with the suggestion that the board and the WIPA need to learn to co-exist; thus far, none of them has managed to walk that talk, so for now everything is in wait and watch mode. The first real indication of whether Hilaire can reverse the trend will come when the Windies team to tour Australia is announced; it will be full strength, promises the incoming chief, and that should delight Ricky Ponting, who has been expressing concern at the prospect of facing a scratch XI Down Under.

Narendra Modi heads Gujarat cricket

Narendra Modi has taken over the reins of the Gujarat Cricket Association and, in trademark fashion, hit the ground running.

“There is much to do in cricket world except playing the game by ball and bat in the field,” Modi said.

“I will sit with co-members of GCA to form a blueprint of development of cricket, how to give it a professional touch, development of cricket by an integrated approach and attracting youths towards sports by using the popularity of Cricket,” he further said.

Ho-kay! We are all agreed that this is a good thing.

“It is a very good development. The CM will now be closer to the issues of cricket in the state and will give impetus to cricketing activities. I congratulate him and wish him luck in his new endeavour,” said Chirayu Amin, BCCI vice-president and BCA president.

When asked how Modi as GCA president would help the game, Amin said, “Any issues involving state agencies will get quick clearance.”

The reporter left the logical next question unasked: Name one such issue, please, that currently does not get quick clearance?

Before you read into this another ‘anti-Modi rant’ from a ‘pseudo-secular pseudo-intellectual or pseudo-secular-intellectual’ or whatever, my grouse, and question, is this: have you ever wondered why every damned politician in the country is in recent years hell bent on improving the state of Indian cricket? [At this rate, pretty soon election manifestos of the various political parties will have a section on the game].

Ask the question and the answer you will get is, cricket is important to so many people, it is a religion in this country, it provides amusement to so many of us, so of course it is the politician’s duty to do what he can for the betterment of the sport…

The answer you won’t get is, cricket generates as much money as the top industries do; there is no way I can wiggle into top positions in top industries but heck, I can sneak into cricket administration quite easily, and once there, there is tons of money to be made. By me. For me.

Hence, cricket is now a full-fledged battleground for not just ambitious individuals but for political parties [remember the problems Lalit Modi  -- who, incidentally, is the only individual to merit an entry in this wiki list of cricket associations, and how cool is that? -- faced after Vasundhara Raje lost Rajasthan?]:

GCA was till now controlled by Congress leader Narhari Amin. But Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah was engaged in long drawn political as well as legal battle with Amin group for the last one and half year for the control of cash rich GCA.

Recently, the BJP had managed to win over the Central Board of Cricket of Ahmedabad (CBCA) which is a part of GCA from the Congress group, after which Amin had resigned.

See? The BJP and the Congress, as represented by Amit Shah and Narhari Amin, are so hell bent on improving cricket in Gujarat, they have been fighting a legal and political battle for a year and a half now — and here you were thinking politicians didn’t care.

So anyway, since we have reached a point where you can’t keep politicians out of cricket even with a court injunction, I have a suggestion: the BCCI should just amend its constitution to say that the chief minister of each state automatically becomes the head of the respective cricket association.

Why not? At the least, it puts and end to these power struggles and year-long legal battles and such. And as the BCCI veep pointed out, all issues relating to the state will get single window clearance.

And who knows? Maybe Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu and Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan in Kerala have bright ideas on all the things you can do in the cricket world outside of playing with a bat and ball.

And how about Mayawati as head of the UPCA? At the least, Lucknow will get beautified with statues of her with bat in hand, and what a boost that will be for the development of cricket in the state!

Here’s Ramesh Srivats on Modi & Modi, Inc.

The business of franchises

Not long after Lalit Modi claimed a top five spot for the IPL in the global sports franchises list, Forbes in an extended piece hailed it as the world’s hottest growing sports franchise.

Apropos, a clip from my recent conversation with Harsha [the full interview, which was an hour long, will appear in Rediff Monday]:

It’s almost a given that the IPL will survive and even thrive so the question is, is this the cue we need to refashion our domestic cricket?

I think so. I think the best cricket, the best results, are produced by profitable enterprises. The best product eventually – unless you are in a capitalist culture where everyone comes and forms cartels to cheat the consumer – otherwise, the best deal comes from a profit driven enterprise. My original excitement with the IPL and the idea of franchise-driven sport was, eventually the state associations go away and you only have 15 franchises in India, and the franchises produce three teams each – a four day team, a one day team and a T20 team. Just as Yorkshire County Cricket Club is responsible for producing three teams. So similarly everything is done by the franchises, which are profit driven enterprises, and the BCCI is a governing council sitting up there framing the laws, picking the teams, having a selection committee, like a center, with federations. And that is what I’d love to see even today.

Utopian, but will we ever get there?

No, because the state associations that exist have been fattened on grants. Any system where you are fattened on grants, you will not want to pursue excellence – which is the bane of all sport in India, and the bane of federations in India. Hockey for instance doesn’t take off because hockey sits back and takes money from the government; archery sits back and gets money from the government, so they don’t have to become good. Associations don’t have to become good because they sit back and get money from the BCCI. Which is why I was very excited about the franchise structure, where all Indian cricket is franchise-driven.

Currently people say the problem with Ranji Trophy for instance is that no one watches Division 2, no one watches Tripura play for instance, which is fair comment. But if you have 15 private franchises, a Mallya for instance won’t want to come 15^th, so he will go around picking the best players for his franchise and so will the others, and suddenly the league becomes competitive, people come to watch, and when the spectators come, it becomes profitable.

Right. Plus, give each franchise one stadium, and each of them will vie with the others to make their stadium the best, most state of the art, and for no cost to the BCCI…

Yes, and another aspect of this is, don’t the Bulls and the Lakers for instance do road shows? They want to popularize their players – and that is what the franchises here will do in this system, because when selling jerseys becomes an important part of your financial model you want your four day players to be popular too. The BCCI will no longer have to market the sport — the franchises will do that for you. The BCCI can do what it does best – sell television rights and pick teams, in that order.

IPL and the battle for Indian cricket

What the prophets of doom have been predicting is slowly coming true — international cricket under the ICC’s aegis is gradually become hostage to the IPL. Consider this:

New Zealand have shortened next year’s home Test series against Australia to two matches to help alleviate scheduling conflicts with the lucrative Indian Premier League Twenty20 season.

Six senior New Zealand players, including captain Daniel Vettori, delayed signing their contracts with New Zealand’s cricket board until late July, after conflicts between the IPL and the team’s international programme were clarified.

The unstated sub-text: six senior Kiwi players including the captain were willing to refrain from signing national contracts if doing so meant they couldn’t go make money in the IPL. And the Kiwi board took the threat seriously enough to make a drastic change to the ICC-underwritten calendar.

The ICC had the option, when framing its latest Future Tours Program, to bow to the inevitable and create an IPL window of a couple of months. But the global body could not be seen to be bowing to the dictates of an upstart league, hence it refused such accommodation — and here on, will find itself increasing facing the problem of top stars opting out of national commitments unless the schedules are adjusted and they are allowed to make full use of the money-making opportunities afforded by the Indian league.

Standby for outbreaks of heartburn from across the cricket playing world; for diatribes on how Indian money is spoiling international cricket. Such polemics miss one central point: the IPL is a fact of life, as is the desire of cricketers to earn as much money as they possibly can while they are still on top of their game, and the solution clearly lies in making a simple accommodation.

The more interesting and potentially more far-reaching confrontation however is internal. The face-off between the BCCI, represented by its secretary N Srinivasan, and high profile IPL commissioner Lalit Modi is prima facie a dispute over the bill presented by the IMG for services rendered — but there’s a far larger battle brewing beneath the surface.

Harsha suggests that it is a personality clash.

The IPL has a visionary in Lalit Modi but if it wants to compete with Wimbledon or the English FA or the Augusta Masters it must create strong systems and ease away from personality cults. Modi and Srinivasan cannot oppose each other!

I suspect that to see this as a battle of wills between Srinivasan and Modi is to concentrate on the battle, and ignore the far larger war. Check out a couple of links from the morning papers: state associations weigh in on IMG dispute, and this other story on the controversy. Clips:

Cricket Board’s affiliates want a reduction in the Rs 33 crore fee payable to the International Management Group for services rendered in conducting this year’s Indian Premier League in South Africa, according to BCCI sources.

“A fee reduction in the range of Rs 7 or 8 crore is what the members want,” sources said.

The 25 associations affiliated to the Board are set to get Rs eight crore each as their share of the IPL spoils and apparently want an increase in this amount.

First up, we have now officially entered into the war of letters. Thus, if Modi and the IPL wave around the letters of Mukesh Ambani and six of the other seven franchises, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan can now wave in response the missives of the 25 associations that comprise the board.

Why would state associations get Rs 8 crore each year, considering they do zip towards the conduct of the IPL? Because that is how the machinery works: the associations elect the office bearers who, in turn, reward these voters with matches, grants etc.

In this cozy little scheme, the franchises are the outsiders — and what the board fears above all else is the prospect of the franchises demanding and getting a share in the decision-making process. Consider this:

It is also not clear why the working committee, the all-powerful arm of the BCCI, was in such tearing hurry to pass a resolution to this effect on this potentially tricky issue. A few working committee members that TOI spoke to admitted to the haste on their part but are livid with the IPL franchise owners for “poking their nose into” something that is clearly “none of their business”.

“The issue involves two parties – the BCCI and IMG. The franchise owners have no locus standi. The matter is being reviewed by the BCCI president, who I am sure will come up with an acceptable solution,” a working committee member said.

There lies the crux of the problem: the BCCI’s honchos cannot permit a situation where its absolute right to take any and all decisions is diluted in any way, and they view giving in to the franchises on the IMG issue as the thin end of a wedge that could eventually create huge fissures in the time honored power structure.

N Srinivasan represents the hierarchy; Lalit Modi, who earlier this year lost elections for the post of president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, is now no longer a part of that structure, has no stake in it, and would love nothing more than to create an independent power structure.

Funnily enough, Lalit Modi had come up with the idea of franchise-driven sport several years before the IPL was born. He was out of power at the time, and had taken the idea to the then fuhrer, Jagmohan Dalmiya. Dalmiya thought about the proposal and finally turned it down. The reason given? Professionally run franchises, he argued then, would not be content to just pay money into the board’s coffers, but would demand a seat at the top table and a share in the decision-making process.

The fear expressed by Dalmiya then is coming true now. This particular shindig will subside soon, with Board president Shashank Manohar finding some kind of compromise formula ahead of the BCCI AGM September 24. But unless I miss my guess, the larger battle for the control of Indian cricket is now fully joined — and its going to be prolonged, bloody and attritional. [Oh, and much fun for us on the sidelines].

Update: Thanks to Cricinfo’s Surfer, just discovered two stories of related interest. Sports attorney Gaurav Sikri looks at the ramifications, legal and otherwise, of the IMG-BCCI spat.

This may not be all that is behind the termination of the agreement however. The fact that the franchisees have come out this time in IMG’s support, leads one to believe that there may actually be other contenders for organising this League, and that is where the dichotomy between aspiration and reality arises. It also reflects the changing mindset of sports in India as they get professionalised and corporatised. In what is subtly being referred to as a unilateral decision, this is actually a protest by the franchisees signifying a realisation of, and discomfort with the perceivable abuse of dominant position on display here by the BCCI/IPL, with respect not only to the treatment meted out to IMG, but importantly, to the franchisees themselves who were not consulted prior to the termination notice.

In the Indian Express, Kunal Pradhan sees the issue as being part of a larger power struggle:

In a letter, for example, Mumbai Indians owner Mukesh Ambani has written: ‘I am personally shocked at the unilateral decision of doing away with the services of IMG… It is also worrying for me that such a significant decision in relation to IPL has been taken without even so much as consulting the franchisees.”

The sentiment is that the new franchisees feel they have the right to demand answers about how cricket in India is being run. And in a Board that has never been faced with such a problem because of its ‘independent’ nature, not everyone is sure how to react in this novel situation.

So while one side is waving letters — from Ambani, Shah Rukh Khan and even former Board chief Sharad Pawar — to oppose the dismissal of IMG, which was praised so lavishly by Modi at the end of the second IPL; the other side’s old-school BCCI survival instincts are considering this a sign that the exclusivity of their private club is in danger of being breached forever.

“Today, they (franchisees) are saying which company should be the IPL’s promoter, tomorrow they will want so-and-so to be the league’s commissioner, and the day after they’ll say we want this man as Board president,” a top BCCI official said on Tuesday, clearly expressing his faction’s biggest fear. “This is not proper.”

Continuous conflict

“I always believed that the Board believes in continuity and undoing what was done consciously and in the best interests of Indian cricket is neither desirable nor appropriate.”

Sharad Pawar nails it when he suggests, albeit obliquely, that the Board’s action against the IMG appears to be prompted more by the Srinivasan-Modi rivalry than in a spirit of fiscal conservatism. With all franchises barring the Srinivasan-owned Chennai backing the IMG, today’s meeting in Mumbai to settle the issue should be fun.

Pay first, regret later?

The BCCI has ’snapped its ties’ with event management group IMG. The franchises are concerned that professionalism will be the first casualty in subsequent editions of the League. And we media types are happy something has come along to provide interest — and colorful copy — just when everyone was getting bored with doing daily stories on how well the camp to prepare the Indian team for the tri-series in Sri Lanka starting September 8 was going.

The Times had a blow by blow account, derived from the letter BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan wrote to IMG:

The letter (a copy of which is in possession of TOI), says, ‘‘Your services were utilized for the first year of IPL (April/May 2008) for which an amount of Rs 42.92 crore was paid to you. The contract was negotiated between the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan and Andrew Wildblood. When the said terms were placed before the working committee of the Board for approval, the same were not approved. However, during the pendency of the negotiations, your services were utilized for the season 2009 during April/May 2009 for the IPL event which was shifted to South Africa.

“However, the working committee of the Board thought that the amount which was asked by the IMG was disproportionate to the services rendered and therefore again the negotiations took place between the president and secretary of BCCI and Andrew Wildblood in London in June 2009. You were asked to submit a fresh proposal before the next working committee meeting of the Board which you failed to furnish. Therefore, please note that the BCCI has taken a decision not to use IMG’s services any more for the Indian Premier League tournament.’’

In other words Srinivasan, himself a franchise-owner and an industrialist who, in his other life, routinely handles all manner of contracts, unilaterally negotiated a contract. The ‘working committee’ took an awful long time to work on it and figure out the board was paying too much. While the ‘working committee’ was working on this, a second edition of the IPL was completed, still per the terms of the original contract the ‘working committee’ had found unacceptable.

Question: Why is N Srinivasan not the one who is being sacked, for incompetence that according to the board has resulted in losses?