A new blueprint for the IPL
A new blueprint for the IPL
Watching the sleaze drip off the Indian Premier League (IPL) I was reminded of a man I’d encountered in my early days in cricket journalism. He was a suave, laid-back Englishman, had dabbled in the global sports-rights industry for some years as a middleman and found he hadn’t the stomach for it. “The dirtiest business in the world," he called it.
I write this piece six days before publication. Things are moving fast. Some hours ago the semi-finals were moved out of Bangalore after more bombs were discovered around the stadium. Shashi Tharoor’s fate as minister had just been sealed over his lady friend’s sweat equity. Meanwhile, reports of Lalit Modi’s conduct, too formidable a list to summarize, mounted and mounted. By the time the piece appears, I do not know if he will have taken a terrible fall, emerged heroically triumphant, or merely survived with wounds. What I do know is that cricket has been grabbed at so hard that it can barely be discerned any more. To get a taste of how this game is played, have a look at Shantanu Guha Ray’s report in Tehelka. I cannot vouch for every fact, of course, but it is a pretty vivid illustration of “the dirtiest business in the world".
As the raids and reports and rumours escalated, I briefly indulged in the thrilling fantasy that the whole league might go up in flames in a spectacular blaze of corruption.
Who would be the loser? Not the Indian team. England’s examples in both football and cricket have shown, as have India’s own Twenty20 performances in the past year, that a league only exists for the sake of the league. The effect on the national team, many argue, is deleterious if anything. Neither, in the long run, would young Indian cricketers lose, because the T20 fixation that the IPL encourages, and the “IPL Nights" culture that it advances, will not make them superior cricketers. The spectator, perhaps—but not if he can be given something entertaining in place.
A relatively minor point in the Tehelka report caught my eye. It had to do with Jagmohan Dalmiya’s efforts at rallying state cricket associations against Modi for a larger share of the IPL pie. This was interesting not only because of BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India’s) realpolitik. It is much more relevant than that.
“The IPL is, logically, the brainchild of a party animal, for it is the most ingenious private party organized in the history of independent India," M.J. Akbar wrote recently. For this private party the state provides stadiums, security and tax waivers. Cricket associations (the Indian state associations that Dalmiya is trying to galvanize, as well as others from around the world) groom and supply the cricketers. The Indian business and glamour-world elite then comes in and buys and sells.
Also Read Rahul’s previous lounge columns
But I run on. This is not the IPL we have or will have; the IPL we have is in the papers every day.
Write to Rahul at thetickledscorer@livemint.com
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