BCCI's riches

No one can fault the Board of Control for Cricket in India's decision to set aside 26 per cent of the largesse it will earn from its just concluded contract on TV rights, for cricketers.

It is well known that, owing to the curiously monopsonistic nature of the cricket business, most cricketers in India are poorly paid. Indeed, Messrs Dalmia and Co. would do well to alter the current formula under which the bulk of BCCI's gross receipts go to international players.

For while no one will begrudge India's cricket stars what they earn, BCCI would do more to develop the sport if it focused more of its attention on the domestic cricket season.

Today, the fat team and personal sponsorship and endorsement deals mean that the average top-level cricketer can earn a deservedly comfortable income (though nothing compared to global standards, it must be said).

It is the talented aspirant, one or more levels below, who needs financial sustenance, a requirement that has grown ever since economic reform made it difficult to sportsmen to rely on profitable public sector corporations to hire them as nominal employees.

As the seemingly bottomless supply of talent coming out of Australia or Sri Lanka shows, there is much to be gained from trying to institutionalise excellence rather than depending on the serendipitous emergence of a Tendulkar or Dravid to sustain the Indian team.

Since the BCCI does not publicly declare its accounts, it is difficult to see exactly how it spends the huge amounts of money it earns from TV and other rights (like in-stadium advertising).

The number of superfluous officials that accompany the Indian cricket team on its sojourns might provide a partial answer to that question. But it takes just one visit to a Ranji Trophy match to understand where it is not going.

The conditions under which domestic cricketers play India's most prestigious domestic cricket tournament, and the facilities they get, may mark a major improvement on what was available, say, 30 years ago. But as a nurturing ground for a sport that has grown into a global money-spinning business, it would be no exaggeration to describe them as abysmal.

Equally, it would benefit Indian cricket enormously if it were to invest a greater part of its riches in upgrading in-stadia facilities for both fans and players.

Today, shamefully, India has just one truly world class stadium in Mohali, near Chandigarh. The rest do not compare with anything available in other international values.

Perhaps BCCI is unable to see a link between growing crowd misbehaviour in India and sub-standard stadia. It was a connection that European football managements saw in the 1980s, as a result of which most stadia were rapidly converted into all-seater venues.

Today, cricket has become a tax-free milch cow that has made the BCCI the richest sports body in India. So far, it has shown unswerving resolve in discharging its function as a board that controls cricket profits. Surely, the time has come to give more back to the players and fans who have sustained the sport.