Politicians fight for domination in cricket

With politicians occupying positions of power in sports federations, it has come as no surprise that politics would spill into sports and become yet another arena for scoring political brownie points.

The unravelling controversy over the new International Cricket League (ICL) and the older established Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) seems to have divided political opinion more firmly than any political issue could have.

Railway minister Lalu Prasad, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal and AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh have already declared themselves in favour of the Subhash Chandra-run ICL and against Agriculture Minister and BCCI chief Sharad Pawar.

Lalu Prasad has offered the railways pitch for ICL matches and Digvijay Singh has written to Pawar asking him not to bar BCCI players from joining ICL.

BJP parliamentary party spokesperson VK Malhotra and more notably Party General Secretary Arun Jaitley on the other hand have known views opposing ICL. Jaitley, a BCCI board member reflects the opinion of the rest of the board in opposing parallel federations challenging BBCI's domination.

As in the rest of politics, the issue is more than a question of cricket. According to Congress insiders, the new found love for ICL is aimed at discomfiting Pawar rather than benefiting Chandra.

"Pawar has made powerful enemies in the Congress and UPA allies. His concentration on cricket rather than his portfolio has been blamed for rising inflation and an inability of the government to deal with agrarian crisis," said a top Congress leader.

In fact at a Congress Working Committee meeting on inflation, a senior minister in the government declared that had Pawar been a Congressman he would have been sacked as minister.

Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairman Sonia Gandhi are said to be extremely angry with Pawar for his focus on cricket rather than agriculture.

"At a recent group of ministers meet, of which Pawar is a member he asked ministers to speed up their presentations since he had to attend a BCCI meet for selecting a new coach for team India," said a top government official.

Team Pawar or the rest of the BCCI board is also not without fangs, at Railway Minister Lalu Prasad's offer to let ICL use the railways pitch for matches, one board member said this could get the railways team debarred from the Ranji league.

"Then they will have to play ICL, and no respectable player will want to play for the railways," said the member.

The last shot is yet to be played in this unfolding drama, and according to a board member, "This is going to get a lot murkier before it is resolved."