A question for Mr Lalit Modi – what’s happening to all the money made from the IPL?

Dear Mr Modi

First I would like to thank you for giving us the IPL.We got to see some great cricket and also witnessed a professional franchisee format for the first time in India. It was also a good opportunity for me to write and talk a lot. As promised by you, the league also unearthed some new talent and gave the first-class players a chance to rub shoulders with the top international players. That they got some pocket –money for doing so and also managed the occasional stay in five –star hotels was an added bonus.

But there is one small IPL-related matter that I still have no clue about. It’s about all the profits that accrued from the league. If I remember right, the money was supposed to have been utilized to develop the game at the grass-roots level in the country. More than a month has now passed since the IPL got over. We have heard a lot about the proposed Champions League but I haven’t heard any announcements made about the launch of new initiatives to develop cricket. We heard about the BCCI building a world-class gym for the parliamentarians and giving 50 crores to the IOA to aid other sports in their preparation for the Olympics. But have heard absolutely nothing about cricket and about the game's development at the grass-roots level.

You are generally not averse to press conferences and mega announcements. Why are you quiet now

I tried googling but couldn’t find anything - At least not in the first 100 odd search results. It’s possible that the announcements were made in far flung small towns (the grass roots) and the newspapers in those small places don’t have online editions for Google to index. But still, the country’s 24 hour news channels should have covered the announcement. They don’t miss even a dog’s bark in this country.

So then the only explanation is that these announcements have not been made public. I am sure you (Mr Modi) have already launched multiple programs to develop the game at the grass-roots. And we will soon see lots of new stadiums, practice facilities, coaching clinics and fitness centers coming up all over the country. And as usual you don’t want to announce it to the world and get credit for developing the game. But we are a country of skeptics and always want to know where all the money went, unless we see something tangible happening.

So, for the benefit of skeptics like me who will falsely tarnish your name, I request you to kindly announce to the world where all the IPL profits are being spent. I and many others who are interested in the development of the game would be forever grateful.

Thanks

Common fan

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IPL Daily Dose – 29/05/2008 - Srikkanth, Arun Lal and Raj Thackeray win non-cricketing IPL awards

The league stage of the IPL is over and the knock-out games start tomorrow. Like the American leagues we will also hand out awards separately for the regular season and then for the knock-out round. In today’s daily dose we will first hand out the non-cricketing awards. Part two will have all the cricketing awards.

Award for the ‘Best Fan Attire/Apparel’ goes to the Blue Chiffon Saris worn by the female fans of the Rajasthan Royals. Forget the jerseys and the Tees; this is as truly Indian as it will ever get. And full marks for original thought. Historically the Rajputs have worn saffron to battle but blue seemed to have done the trick this time round.

Award for the ‘Most Inhospitable Team’ is jointly shared by the Kings XI Punjab and the Kolkata Knight Riders. These teams don’t even have enough accommodation for their own players. On second thoughts the award only goes to the Punjab side. They are part-owned by an hotelier for god’s sake.

Award for the ‘Most Unsporting Parent’ goes to Krishnamachari Srikanth. He disappeared into thin air the day his son made a disappointing debut in the IPL. He didn’t have the gall to make his customary post match player bashing appearance. We wanted to hear his analysis of Anirudha’s performance.

Award for the ‘Most Indigestible Comment’ goes to commentator Ranjit Fernando. On being asked to comment on the poor early form displayed by the Kings XI Punjab, he commented that the foreign players from Sri Lanka were taking a while to get settled as they were suffering from jet lag!!!. Has the island nation drifted away and become part of the American mainland?

Mr Fernando kindly stay back on the stage please. We have another award for you.

Award for the ‘Most Abused Remark’ also goes to Ranjit Fernando. Till the time I could manage to keep count he had already used “and that is the best thing about the IPL format” 23, 387, 543 times. Everything that he saw had to do with format it seems. The world was not created on the day the IPL started, Mr Fernando.

In a manner similar to the way congressman fall over each other in trying to praise Sonia Gandhi, IPL commentators were trying to out-do each other in their efforts to praise Lalit Modi. The theme was to eulogize him as the great visionary who started the IPL. The winner of the ‘Praise Lalit Modi’ suck-athon is Arun Lal. He happened to know that Lalit Modi wasn’t second to Subhash Chandra in thinking about a league like this and that Modi had dreamt of the IPL long before anyone knew. So how did Arun Lal know? Was he in bed with Mr Modi, when the IPL commissioner was dreaming about the IPL?

The Award for the ‘Best Proof that India is far ahead of the World in Gender Equality’ goes to the male cheerleaders in the IPL. Many countries now have female heads of State. But no nation has thought of semi-clad male cheer leaders. Who said there was nothing for female fans in the IPL?

Award for the ‘Worst Team Owner’ goes by a landslide margin to Dr Vijay Mallya. No time to wax eloquent about his efforts. We have more awards to hand out.

Award for the ‘Best Incentive provided by a Team Owner’ goes to Preity Zinta and the kisses handed out by her. No wonder the guys in her team are rocking. Her team also saved on spending for a brand ambassador.

Award for ‘Most Uninterested Politician’ goes to Raj Thackeray. The Mumbai team was playing a ‘Bihari Bhaiya’ in the form of Saurav Tiwary. That there was no reaction from Mr Thackeray and his cohorts is proof enough that he gave the tournament a complete miss.

Award for the ‘Biggest form of Chamchagiri’ goes to all the film stars who came out to support SRK’s Knight Riders against the Mumbai Indians. This game was played in Mumbai and these Chamchas were all decked out in gold and black against a city which has meant a world to them. They also win the Award for ‘Most Disloyal Fans’. Hope their fans turn disloyal too.

And finally the Award for ‘Best Holiday Travel package’ goes to Mr Lalit Modi. By creating various quota requirements for the teams, he ensured that there was tremendous scope for free loaders – guys who were in the sides just to make up the numbers. These guys got to travel with the players, stay in the five star hotels, practise with the game’s greats, sit in the dugouts and run on the field to celebrate. Cricket –mad people in this country will pay a fortune to get such an opportunity. Is there a better holiday package available in this country?

Thanks all of you for coming. We will be back shortly with all the cricketing awards

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Why I love the ICL and not the IPL

Dear Cricket fans

Iam sure all of you are really looking forward to the Indian Professional League starting on the 17th of April. You are probably in the process of making plans to catch all the exciting action – both live and televised. You will probably end up spending decent moolah on the twenty-20 extravaganza.

But before you get wallet –happy, remember that every penny that you spend on the IPL, every minute of IPL action that you catch on the TV, every cheer that you raise and every comment that you make on the internet will only go a long way towards making the BCCI an even more inefficient and corrupt creature than what it already is.

The money spent on buying anything from a match ticket to a team jersey, a player card or a bottle of water in the stadium will directly or indirectly end up in the secret vaults of the cricket board. The greedy BCCI controls every revenue source in the IPL and has ensured a gazillion dollar profit for itself long before even a ball has been bowled. It owns the TV rights, the sponsorship rights, the media rights and whatever else that could be sold. And all this after the franchisees coughed up a hundred million dollars each to swell BCCI’s already over-flowing coffers.

Mr Modi has not yet announced how this massive loot will be spent. Although, when he decides to do so, he will predictably wax rhetoric about developing cricket infrastructure and promoting the game at the grass-roots level. So why has the BCCI waited for so long to start doing it. They were loaded with cash long before the IPL happened and haven’t done a lot about the cricket infrastructure and promotion of the game in this country. The money will simply go where it’s been going all this while – into the pockets of the BCCI functionaries and their cronies in the state cricket associations. So, all of you planning to make a huge success of the IPL; remember that you are letting the crooks of the BCCI put their dirty hands in your pockets while you are engrossed in the cricket action.

All over the world the professional leagues are run independently of the game’s governing body. There is a separate governing body to run basketball in the US and a different one (usually a set of appointed professionals) to manage the affairs of the NBA. For all the good things Mr Modi picked up from the NBA, the EPL and the MLB, he chose to conveniently ignore the need for a separate professional body to manage the IPL. There is no need for one when you have the eminently capable team of the BCCI. And anyways they have enough spare time on their hands to run ten leagues forget one measly IPL. After all, the job description of a BCCI official is just restricted to attending a hundred selection meetings and counting money. And that is in addition to their day job of being a politician or whatever that gives them enough scope for corruption and inefficiency. The IPL money is their bonus for the terrific job they have done in their multiple roles. So go splurge on the IPL to ensure that all the great men of the BCCI are rewarded sufficiently.

Now that the IPL is here, please do not waste your time following the ICL. After all it’s just a poor country cousin. All the big stars are in the IPL. What does the ICL have? Who cares if the biggest stars for the title-wining Hyderabad Heroes were a forgotten Pakistani and 3 unknown Indians? We want stars. We don’t have time for the likes of Stuart Binny, Ambati Rayudu and Indra Shekhar Reddy. We are not interested in knowing that these unknown fellas more than managed to hold their own against the best of the international talent in the ICL. Even though we are perplexed as to how come they were never in any kind of national reckoning; not even for A tours or challenger trophies, we will not blame the state cricket associations for nepotism. Everyone deserves an equal chance to play. We cannot discriminate on the basis of talent and performance. And anyways, bad selection policies are a small price to pay for the great job the associations have done in electing the members of the BCCI. That the ICL players were so frustrated with the shambolic policies of their state boards, that they didn’t think twice about joining the rebel league and face an international ban is a matter that has been blown out of proportion.

We are not bothered about the pathetic state of the domestic game and the good that the ICL has done for domestic players. There is no need to promote the domestic game by making first-class cricket a financially viable career option. A competitive and exciting domestic structure will take some of the attention away from our national stars and probably deprive them of some of their endorsement money. Additionally, it will bring too much media attention on the state selectors and hinder them from doing their jobs well. And having too many good players competing for just 11 places will add to the headache of our poor national selectors. We should not take unfair advantage of the large talent pool we have. After all we have a larger population and the game is far more popular here. The BCCI is right in banning the ICL and ensuring that we are stuck in mediocrity. All of you ignoring the ICL and supporting the IPL will surely help the BCCI achieve this mission.

Iam a fool and a dreamer. I don’t want the poor BCCI officials to make some extra money on the side. Iam biased against politicians running the game. I yearn for a great domestic structure. I prefer an Indian MNC over a state run PSU. I support the ICL and not the IPL.

If you are also a fool, then please pass this on to other fools you know.

Thanks

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