A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Wonder if these guys ever talk about improving the Ranji Trophy?

The BCCI wants India to play as many international fixtures to possible because these matches net them a lot of money. Subsequently the heavy international calendar ensures that the tired Indian internationals rarely play in the domestic tournaments like the Ranji trophy, unless they have been dropped and are looking to prove a point. This reduces the star quotient of the domestic circuit and dilutes the quality of the cricketing fare and the intensity of the competition. A combination of these reasons ensures that the fans stay away and as a result the state associations and the BCCI make very little money from these games. As a result these bodies take very little active interest in these games. No effort is made to improve the state of these domestic tournaments.

The players who play in these tournaments have a million reasons to feel dispirited. They play in front of nonexistent crowds. They get paid poorly. And realistically speaking they don’t have a great opportunity to make a case for themselves, thanks to the poor quality of the pitches and the lack of quality competition. Runs scored and wickets taken are always taken with a pinch of salt. Players are rarely put in situations which test their mental fortitude and help them mature as cricketers. Most of the players who shine and get a chance to play at the next level are not well prepared to handle the rarefied air of international cricket. And not because they didn’t have the ability but because they have no experience or practise of having played on sporting pitches or against quality opposition or having been in tough situations. 99% of people reading this will not be able to name the top scorer and the top wicket- taker in last season’s Ranji trophy . If you can then may god bless you.

So is it wrong if players are ready to give an arm and a leg to play in the IPL?

The money is important but there are many other reasons why domestic players would be ready to forego the entire Ranji Trophy season to play a couple of IPL games

Prof Ratnakar Shetty and the BCCI are worried about the charms of the IPL but are they doing anything to make the Ranji Trophy exciting.

The Ranji format is flawed and fundamentally prone to produce defensive boring cricket. Borrowing a few ideas from Australia and South Africa will address that problem. But Mr Shetty and gang either find high scoring draws exciting or they schedule their discussions on domestic cricket during the IPL’s 10 minute strategic timeouts.

Seriously , is it absolutely impossible to market the Ranji Trophy in a cricket crazy country like ours?

Will it be difficult to draw crowds and attract sponsors if UP’s pace battery of RP Singh, Pravin Kumar and Sudeep Tyagi took on the might of Gambhir and Sehwag on a bouncy track with both sides playing to win. A few foreign players could be thrown in to add to the competitive intensity and the star power.

Will this lead to revenue generation from the Ranji Trophy and a better lot of players coming out of domestic cricket.

Yes

Is that in the best interests of the BCCI, the state associations, future India aspirants as well as Indian cricket in general

Yes

Does the BCCI control all the variables that are required to make this happen?

Yes, unless they are being blackmailed by someone from another cricketing nation who has a video of the entire board involved in a gay orgy in the middle of the Wankhede

Shame on you, you poster child of nepotism

Arjun Yadav is a part of the India Blues side for the ongoing NKP Salve Challenger trophy. I would assume that he has been given a chance by the selectors on the basis of his strong domestic performances. They haven’t shared with us what they saw, so let’s go and find for ourselves.

I last remember him playing in the IPL for the Deccan Chargers. The Chargers stunk as a whole – surely Arjun must have stood out as a shining star. But the stats show something quite on the contrary. Arjun was 12th best in the worst side in the IPL with a total of 49 runs at an average of 9.80 in 8 games. Even Nuwan Zoysa was better

Surely, Arjun wasn’t selected on the basis of his IPL performance. Then I guess the selectors would have been buoyed by his Ranji performance. After all 20-20 is tamasha cricket and the four day game is a true test of batsman’s ability

Let’s check Arjun’s performance in the last Ranji season

Arjun scored 370 runs in 6 games at an average of 33.46. His state mate DB Ravi Teja on the other hand scored 653 runs at an average of 59.36. And Ravi Teja isn’t playing in the challengers

And how good was Arjun’s performance on an all India level.

This is the list of top 50 batsmen (in terms of average) in the Ranji Trophy in 2007-08. And surprise surprise, Arjun is not on this list. So he wasn’t even one of the fifty best batsmen in the Ranji trophy. In fact he was way behind the last guy on this list – SS Das with an average of 39.40

So Arjun sucked in the Ranji also. Then he must have surely been on fire in the Vijay Hazare trophy. After all it is the domestic one-day competition and is the perfect tournament for selecting players for the Challenger Trophy.

Here are the lists of the top fifty batsmen by average and the top fifty batmen by run scored in the 2007-08 Vijay Hazare Trophy. Surely Arjun must be near the top of both lists. But no – he is actually missing from both lists. The cut off for the first list was 48.33 and for the second list it was 176 runs. So where is Arjun?

Arjun is way back with an average of 26.20 and a total haul of 131 runs. He is fifth on the Hyderabad list. In fact two of his state mates – SA Pai and A Shinde have better averages and more runs. And they are also not playing in the Challenger.

So what has Arjun Yadav done to deserve a chance in the Challengers? Why is a batsman who has fared poorly in the IPL, the Ranji Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy being given such a golden opportunity? Is it fair to all the guys who missed out? All the others present in the top fifty lists. Or has he been given a chance just because he is former selector Shivlal Yadav’s son. Is it just a coincidence that Arjun’s father is the Director of the National Cricket Academy. Is there a more blatant case of nepotism – at such a high level?

This comes after the nepotistic policies of the Hyderabad cricket board led by Shivlal Yadav forced most of their talented players to risk their careers and join the ICL.

Will Mr Pawar, Mr Shashank Manohar and Mr Srikkanth please tell us why Arjun Yadav is playing in the Challengers?

The cricket fans of this country deserve to get an answer

Dear Mr Dilip Vengsarkar

I was a huge fan of yours. I thought you were one of the better administrators that we had in the game. I was actually pretty upset with the way you treated Sourav Ganguly by dropping him for the Irani Tropy match. But then I ignored it in light of all the other good work that you did – I dismissed it as one bad call on your part.

But now that you have responded to Sourav Ganguly’s criticism of the selection committee and declared that you will give him “more than what he asked for”, at the end of India’s series against Australia, I have also decided to throw you a challenge.

You better have a good explanation for this

Coz dropping Sourav Ganguly was so bad that even Mr Gavaskar was forced to come down from his high horse and make a statement in favour of Dada.

Your waiting for the series to get over so that there is no discord in the team while the matches are on is nothing but a cheap trick to buy yourself some time. You can have all the time in the world but when you do give Sourav Ganguly “more than what he asked for” just make sure you stick to the cricket –related stuff and nothing else. Please care to define your yardstick and timeline for performance objectively. And remember to justify the inclusion of the other members of the ‘Fab Four’ based on the same yardstick and timeline. And that goes for Sachin Tendulkar as well. And if you can’t do that then you are as bad as a card-carrying member of the Maharashtra Navnirman Seva.

Also don’t resort to the tactic of sending a letter to Mr Manohar or to the de-facto BCCI president (Mr Pawar) and explaining your actions. Or doing what Sreesanth and Harbhajan did – that it is our personal matter and we have had a private discussion and sorted things out. I can totally trust the BCCI to do a cover-up job like that. They will wait for the matter to cool down, offer you and Ganguly a carrot each and ask both of you to just shut up. And the matter will be swept under the carpet.

So let me tell you this. This is not a personal matter. This is about Indian cricket and cricket fans need to know what you have to say in your defence. So please don’t take the carrot and call for a press conference whenever you are ready. And then give Sourav Ganguly “more than what he asked for” in front of the whole world in very objective terms. If you can’t do that then you’d better apologize. Either ways we are all waiting

It just keeps getting better for the ICL. Immediately after making a major inroad into Bangladesh, the league has now won new friends in SriLanka. The Lankan board has agreed to allow players aligned with the rebel Indian Cricket League to compete in the country’s domestic tournaments. Sri Lanka thus becomes the second country after England to do so – more will follow and the clamour for lifting the international ban will also gain a stronger voice. Additionally the ICL gains a new audience – which will create more cash flows and significantly improve the League’s financial health.

And there is more. A strong bitterness is brewing against the BCCI in New Zealand as well. Glenn Turner’s recent interview clearly echoes the sentiments of his country’s cricketing fraternity.

The key excerpts from the interview:

Drifting to a different topic, how do you see the current crisis in New Zealand cricket?
Yes, with the emergence of the Indian Cricket League, we have lost some of our top players. Our provincial cricket is getting weakened and it is getting reflected in our performances in the international circuit. I think it’s time the ICL affiliated players are allowed to play international cricket.

Is the NZC putting the issue forward to the ICC?
I don’t know about that, but what I don’t like is that it’s the Indian board which is calling all the shots in the matter. If somebody’s ego and the power of the mighty dollar are put ahead of the game, cricket is bound to get a beating.

Here’s a list of ICC member countries who would be quite relieved to see the ICL win (a victory means official recognition and an end to losing players to a rebel league) or the IPL lose (emergence of a strong rival league to seriously diminish the BCCI‘s clout in world cricket) – England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. That’s quite a list – The BCCI is either making a lot of enemies or losing a lot of friends. Either ways Subhash Chandra isn’t complaining.

Just when everyone thought the ICL was done for and Subhash Chandra and gang were ready to pack their bags and leave, India’s first professional cricket league is back and not just literally speaking.

They have been pushed to the background by IPL but have continued to do the various small things, which ICL fans’ hope, will ensure the league’s survival for this year and beyond

They needed to expand to newer centres in the country and they have done just that by expanding to Ahmedabad. This expansion has come at the cost of a 10 crore investment towards the development of the stadium. They have quite clearly stuck to their commitment of doing their bit for the development of the game at the grassroots and reaped a few benefits in return. In addition to the expansion, they will also have a much better stadium to play in this time round.

The absence of any quotas or restrictions is the League’s major advantage. They have gone ahead and used it to their advantage by recruiting half the Bangladesh national side. The ICL is fast becoming a haven for those international cricketers who have missed out on the riches of the IPL – and this is quite a list – Mohd Yusuf is close to being the most high profile member of this club. The ICL will benefit from this disgruntled bunch to substantially improve its player quality. While it may not match the IPL, it will have just enough star power to be in business.

Consisting largely of internationally ‘banned’ cricketers, except for those playing in England, the ICL has their players at their disposal for the full year – which is huge advantage. The BCCI and other boards are already having trouble finding a window to stage the IPL on a regular basis. As a consequence of the conflict of interest – like in the case of the next IPL clashing with Sri Lanka’s proposed tour of England, the BCCI continues to invoke the wrath of other boards like the ECB, who, are none too pleased at the gaps appearing in their international calendar.

The signing of the Bangladesh players like in the case of the Pakistanis last year has two more advantages for the ICL. One it opens up a huge international market in Bangladesh – the population of that country will be quite keen to watch their home grown stars – which is almost like an alternate national side perform in the ICL. The ICL might not be able to compete with the IPL in India, but can surely give them a run for the eyeballs in Bangladesh. A case in point being ICL’s popularity in Pakistan – where matches of last edition where shown live on their biggest broadcaster Geo TV.

Additionally, it hurts the Bangladesh Cricket Board who lost some key players. They will have good reason to support the ban being lifted from the ICL players – they have nothing to gain from the IPL-BCCI-ICL fracas and only important players to lose. They will also be sore that the beneficiaries of the ban – the BCCI haven’t lost any national players to the ICL. And not that they are alone – NZL and Pakistan are also peeved. And then there is the ECB. This small bunch can soon gain enough critical mass – enough to influence the ICC. The international body is still struggling to find an answer to ICL’s petition and if pressurized enough by the victimized boards, will surely succumb.

But when is the question. It will be a huge victory for the ICL. But till then they continue to lose money and just about survive. The IPL hopes the moment will never come and even if it does comes late enough, so that the ICL is crippled by its losses and has to close before the salvation happens. At the moment it continues to be a battle of attrition between the Essel group and the BCCI. The ICL though just gained a small but significant victory.

When the Indian Hockey team failed to qualify for Beijing, there was a clamour for the IHF chief – KPS Gill’s head. The Sports Minister, the honourable Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar felt the pain but refused to go against the Olympic Charter which calls for the non-interference of national governments in the running of sports bodies. So if all the sports bodies are going to run on their own, what is the need of a sports ministry?

For all his impotence, the minister could at least claim to be the only righteous and rule abiding man in the parliament. Well, at least till some time back. Now there is a parliamentarian who not only goes by the rule book but is also a man of action. We are talking of the one and only Rajiv Shukla.

Mr Shukla is a BCCI vice-president and he was recently asked about providing financial assistance to the poverty stricken family of former India U-15 captain Subhash Dixit. For the benefit of the uninformed, Dixit’s inability to provide two square meals for his family drove him to commit suicide recently.

Shukla responded by saying that the BCCI had no rule to provide financial assistance in such cases and as such his hands were tied. He added, however, that they do provide pension to former Ranji trophy players and help in treatment of terminal diseases. Well done, Mr Shukla. Unflinching under the media gaze and refusing to break rules the way a regular ‘human’ being would have done in this case.

And that’s not all. Mr Shukla is also ensuring that this country has more and more rules to obey. He has convinced the BCCI president, Mr Sharad Pawar to donate 1.5 crore rupees to build a gym for the rule makers of this country – Mr Shukla’s fellow parliamentarians. Most sportsmen in this country do not have a world class gym to work out but so what. The parliamentarians have a greater need for it as they have more flab to burn. The Gym will also ensure that the rule makers are always in fine fettle and can start making rules with renewed vigour and energy. Rules which will ensure that the likes of Aiyar and Shukla always have something to fall back on for their ineptitude.

Some of the possible new rules

1.No minister (read MS Gill) can sack long serving sports administrators like KPS Gill and Jyothikumaran. This will ensure that the likes of MS Gill cannot do what Mr Aiyar cannot.

2.The pension provided to Ranji players be cancelled and instead be given to old parliamentarians. Thus the media cannot complain about preferential treatment for some cricketers (Ranji players) and neglect of some( Subhash Dixit)

The BCCI will fund a lot of noble ventures with the money generated from the IPL. The 1.5 crores spent on the gym, however, would be the money best spent.

I thought I could get away with lavishing praise on the ICL and bashing the BCCI and the IPL. Sadly for me, my crimes have caught up with me. I will have to pay for watching the ICL and writing about it.

The BCCI ban on the players and officials attached to the ICL has now been extended to the fans of the so-called Rebel league. As part of this drive, ICL watchers like me have been cut off from all forms of official cricket.

I have been branded a rebel fan and following are the restrictions imposed on me by the BCCI

• I can no longer watch any official cricket on TV. In fact my cable operator was forced to choose between official cricket and the ICL, and poor man had to take the former option and black out coverage of the rebel league. He been given a discount on the new IPL coverage tariff imposed on cable operators for his loyalty.
• Iam not allowed to enter any of the BCCI-controlled stadiums. The BCCI has installed a detection technology used by the Interpol to fish out terrorists at international airports, at all the stadium entrances. They will prevent rogues like me from creating any trouble at official cricket matches.
• All the websites covering official cricket have blocked my computer from accessing their sites and the lack of my regular dose of cricket is already giving me the withdrawal symptoms. In fact, talks are on with Google to display only official cricket –related content on searches. Thus, India will become only the second country after China to impose restrictions on the search engine.

This ban has made my life hell and I can finally relate to the plight of the players and officials who have been banned by the BCCI. I have a greater sense of bonding with them now. And why should they suffer alone. After all, we are all guilty of disobeying the BCCI. In fact, I have heard rumours that other equally guilty parties will be facing a ban soon. These include all the various vendors who have done business with the ICL. The cricket ball supplier, the tent-house guys, the travel agents, the hotel people, the bankers and even the taxi and rickshaw wallahs. Like the cable operator, who was given a second choice, these guys have been given some time to jump off the ICL bandwagon. The BCCI – just and kind as always, doesn’t want to deprive them of their livelihood and is giving them a second chance to mend their ways. And there is money to be made from these guys also. Alas, we poor fans had no such luck. At least you can’t blame the board for favouritism this time. Everyone and anyone has been an equal sufferer.

The ban is depressing. Life as a cricket fan will never be the same again. I don’t know if I can still call myself a cricket fan. Will I have to call myself something else – an anti-cricket fan or banned cricket fan or a rebel cricket fan?

You can see that Iam already going nuts.

And this could get worse.

What if the BCCI blocks my access to the remaining ‘official cricket’ media forums – newspapers, mobile updates, radio, blogs etc? What if ‘official cricket’ fans were forced to boycott us? What if, the BCCI stopped us from buying all the books about ‘official cricket’ – which covers the entire literature there is on cricket. There is so much I plan to read after I retire. What will a retired, socially inept person like me do without ‘official cricket’? I just hope the laws of this country somehow prevent such a situation. But you never know.

BCCI ke haath bahut lambe hain!