A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Dear Mr Modi

This is the second time I am writing to you. The first time, I wanted to know what happened to all the money made from the IPL. You haven’t answered that one as yet. I guess you are too busy, what with the multiple positions that you hold. Well, we will come back to the IPL money and your numerous designations later. I have more important questions to ask first.

Freud would have loved to analyze his brain

Have you had a long history of suffering from temporary memory losses or from multiple personality disorder?

Or has the affliction been a recent one – starting from the time you saw your dream of starting the IPL?

Because nothing else can explain the recent remarks made by you regarding the ICL not satisfying the norms of authorized cricket

First you wear one hat of the IPL commissioner – someone who shamelessly copied the concept of the ICL and then called it his own. Someone who has seen the ICL make major inroads this year and feels threatened by its growing popularity.

And then you sit on the five-member ICC panel which decides what constitutes ‘official cricket’ and what does not. Is there a more clear case of conflict of interest? The only way you could be doing justice to both roles, is if you were suffering from one of the above mentioned ailments. You could then seamlessly shift into the ICC role without any influence or knowledge of your IPL role.

Then you have made the rather ignorant statement saying that there is no window in the international calendar to accommodate the ICL. Tell me seriously; which League has caused more problems to the International calendar, the ICL or the IPL. If there is any doubt then I suggest you check with the Srilankan and English cricket boards. Moreover, the ICL is largely made of aspiring or semi-retired cricketers who don’t have much to do with the international calendar anyways.

You have given two arguments as to why the ICL does not satisfy the norms of official or authorized cricket. Both these norms are news for me and surely a creation of your imagination. And that you have a really confused imagination owing to your multiple personalities makes matters worse

First you have said that the ICL is not built on a pyramid structure, whereas the BCCI-created IPL is built on one. What you forgot to add was that the BCCI pyramid has faults at every level - faults which are a result of a nepotistic architecture which forces a lot of deserving cricketers off the pyramid. Also that this pyramid has a defective foundation where little is spent on the lower levels and millions splurged on the topmost level. The BCCI pyramid is no good and therefore by Mr Modi’s argument, a league (the IPL) backed by a defective pyramid should also be unfit to be deemed official

And then there is your piece de resistance – calling the ICL a profit making exercise. What in god’s name is the IPL doing. And as already complained earlier, we are not even getting a whiff of where all that money is ending up. What were you trying to imply when you called the ICL a corporate effort – that its wrong to be transparent and promote meritocracy like they do in the corporate world. The EPL and the NBA, which you claim, the IPL has borrowed heavily from, are also corporate profit making efforts.

And what do you have to say about the Sanford 20-20. Is it official or not. Is it a corporate profit making exercise or not. Does it have a pyramid like structure or not.

You also mentioned something about the other, new, corporate tournaments that are coming up. What are these tournaments that you are talking about? Are they for real or just taking place in your imagination?

I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw corporate backed tournaments in your dreams, all the time

After all one corporate league has already been causing nightmares for you

The IPL has the advantage of having multiple role models

The first year of the IPL saw player auctions, player quotas, icon players and a draft equivalent for the U-19 players. The organizers of the IPL – the BCCI got most of these spot on, well, except the concept of the ‘Icon Players’ maybe.

Now in its second year, the IPL has new modality-related issues to deal with. Mr Lalit Modi borrowed heavily from international Leagues like the NBA and the EPL in the first year of the IPL and it turned out to be a good move on his part. So why not do the same this time as well. So let’s look at the various issues that need to be dealt with and what is the best possible solution for each – based on how similar issues have been best handled the world over.

The first matter is the salary cap. This was a completely new creature for everyone involved and most of the teams wouldn’t have envisaged the complexities it would involve. And that is precisely why the cap needs to increase – because most of the contracts are for three years and teams will have no financial flexibility to engineer any changes in their composition if they have already utilized the existing cap.

It would also be a good idea to announce approximate cap numbers for the next 4-5 years. This is how it works in the NBA and allows teams to plan out their cap structure. It also gives them a lot of options in devising player contracts. For e.g. If you have less money free in your cap this year but have a lot more next year, you could still sign up a big time player for big bucks by offering more money in the second year of the contract. But all this becomes possible only when the contract structure is not rigid. Teams should be allowed to offer contracts ranging from one to any number of years. Such flexibility is beneficial to both players and teams and ensures that both their interests are protected. The combination of cap planning and flexible contracts adds another exciting element to the league and rewards teams who plan their team composition judiciously and just throw money around – which is how a league should be.

Another question is about the sanctity of the Cap amount - should teams be allowed to spend more? Yes, they should be for the simple reason that there is no league in the world where the cap amount is sacrosanct - it allows teams to go for the jugular and assemble super star squads. You can however protect against teams going over board by having a luxury tax - for every rupee that they spend over the cap they need to pay the league a percentage of it as tax.

The next issue is that of transfers. The league proposes a transfer fee similar to that in European football, with the decision to move depending on both the player and the owning club. As we have seen in football, the balance of power soon shifts to the player and the club targeting the player. The club dangles the carrot of a massive contract and the player soon starts putting pressure on his parent club leading to ugly episodes.

The American model is based on barter and far more cordial. Their exchanges generally involve players moving in both directions with some money and draft picks also thrown in. The club has full right to decide whether it wants to transfer a player or not. Therefore, teams can hold onto their best players and don’t have to re-build every now then. It also encourages a club to develop new talent as there is no risk of richer teams snatching their precocious young players away from them. And development of young talent is high on the BCCI’s agenda for the IPL.

In these transfers, the team also tries to match the annual component of the contracts of the players moving out to that that of those moving in. In this way they can still improve without adding more salary. So for example, Hyderabad could trade one of its big hitters in return for a bowler to fix the balance of their side and not take on any additional salary. This kind of cap management is also a key feature of running professional teams. It’s a far healthier system where disparity between teams is far less than that in Europe where there is a huge gulf between rich and poor teams.

The next point concerns the entry of new players in the league. The League had four different systems last year. There was an auction system for international players; a draft for Indian U-19’s, a catchment area system for domestic players and the rest where signed up in an open market system. The auction was a unique method but a necessary one to form the teams the first time round and can be done away with for the second year. The draft works best in an American scenario where there is a very organized collegiate system and each and every player enters the league via it. Therefore, the draft system for U-19’s who are taking their first steps in big time cricket via the IPL. The catchment area concept was based on the popularity of domestic players in their own states. However, as we saw in the first episode, fans don’t care for that. They just love performers. Therefore, this system can be done away with – will also ensure that there is one uniform recruitment system.

The ‘Icon’ player system also needs a re-think. It was unfair that some teams had certain players thrust upon them and that too for big money, whereas some used the same moolah to grab players of their own liking. However, the three year contracts are already in place and the ‘Icons’ will continue to be so for another two seasons. Some concessions could balance the situation though. The full salary of the ‘Icons’ should not count towards the cap. This way the existing contracts stand but teams with ‘Icons’ have a little more money to play with.

The IPL did well to copy the best practices of the top international leagues during its inception. A similar approach would do it a world of good this year as well

The IPL had this unique concept called icon players. Halfway through the tournament the concept seems to be taking a massive beating. And here’s why.