Failure Fallout

It's quite sometime now since India was knocked out in the first round of the Cricket World Cup '07. (If you haven't noticed by now, most of my articles are on cricket) The whole country was reeling under the tremendous pressure of loosing to Bangladesh, was it, it's so long ago my memory fails me.

There was lot of talk in the media about cricket not being given enough impetus at the 'grass root' level. All the channels, experts panels, came out with the same conclusion. The aftermath of this debacle was almost the same as any other: get bitten, analyse factors that can't be changed, chit chat on screen, analyse a little more, fill the media and newsprint, forget, and get bitten again to complete rounds of the same cycle.

Reversal of this trend needed something out of the ordinary. Kapil's polarised views with the BCCI, resulted in a rift and hence a conscious effort on it's part to regain most of it's lost players to the ICL (the breakaway group initiated by the former skipper). BCCI, with all it's monetary muscle and influential clout was able to rope in the biggest stars of the country to promote this new league. For the record, Indian cricket earns ICC 75% of it's global revenues. The SRKs, the Mallya's and even the starlet Preity Zinta have been in the news in the past few days, not for their acting skills, not tabloid controversies but for promoting a sport!!! As shocking as it may sound, they was invested more 150 Cr between them to buy, yes buy players for the teams they represent. I wonder what happened to all the controversy of the BCCI ordering King Khan against appearing for matches that India played.

Let's come to the chunk of the whole imbroglio. Dhoni: $1.5 mill, McGrath:sold at base price, Yousuf Pathan: $0.475 mill, Ponting: $0.400 mill, Manoj Tiwari: $0.675 mill (who the hell is he)............. (this has been intentionally left incomplete and is to be figured out by the reader).

Cricket is becoming more of a business than ever before. It has stretched the limits of professionalism to business. Looking back in retrospect, it doesn't seem wrong that Sachin, Dravid and Saurav were getting this money with their ad campaigns, that they were reprimanded and lambasted for. After all, why are professionals called so? To earn money. It so happens that India is so passionate about this sport that it fails to look at these people as professionals.

But in the end, this move, that I credit to Kapil Dev, has done everyone a world of good. It gives young cricketers in India a chance to play with the likes of Ponting, Lara, Pollock. It gives the oldies a chance to play the game they have so loved. The money invested helps keeps the economy going. The cricket grounds will be in better shape. The hospitality industry will improve and so will tourism. The fallouts are numerous and, I'm glad, are also positive.