No time to play games

UMPIRE'S POST

The BCCI acting like a threatened bully is up against the Indian Cricket League's obvious potential.

The BCCI's response to Subhash Chandra's announcement of the Indian Cricket League has been what you would expect from a threatened bully.

According to reports, vice-president Lalit Modi has said that the league wouldn't be feasible without the board's cooperation, and that signing up players was not possible without a nod from the BCCI and the International Cricket Council.

"The Board does not give private parties permission to do anything like this," he said. Is the BCCI the master of all cricket in India? The board may have been started by a bunch of princes with a heightened perception of the self, but the sceptre is long gone.

The board once described itself in court as a private club not performing any public function, which, therefore, could not be subjected to public interest litigation. The board's refuge was its status of a private society answerable only to its members "" the 31 state associations.

The board took the same cover when two cricket-lovers filed a PIL in February 2000, seeking accountability and transparency in the way cricket was run in the country. And now it wants to be the family patriarch!

Kerry Packer, who formed a breakaway world series in the 1970s when he was "" like Chandra "" denied the right to telecast cricket in Australia despite offering a higher price, received a big boost when Ian Chappell, recently retired as the captain of Australia, and England's Tony Greig became his evangelists. They made up for the media tycoon's lack of stature in the world of cricket.

Packer also provided many successful innovations: night cricket, coloured clothing etc. But, more than these, he organised matches that had some of the best batsmen of that era "" such as Vivian Richards and Barry Richards "" squaring up to some legendary fast bowlers in their prime.

Given the way the BCCI is managing things, it may not be very difficult for Chandra's league to shine in comparison. As things stand today, the BCCI has only 20-odd contracted players. There are another 4.5 lakh of those out there who play matches in abysmal conditions and are watched only by the jobless and street dogs.

There would be about 25,000 cricket clubs in India "" about 1,900 in Mumbai alone. Thousands of cricket players, with no hope of ever playing for India and not under contract with BCCI or ICC, would gratefully join Chandra's league if he can provide them better pay and conditions and more respect. The BCCI does not even run all the grounds, the local associations do that in many cases.

Chandra's success will not be determined by whether he can please Modi and his ilk, but by whether he can achieve what Packer did: make cricket better, more watchable and more profitable for all.