Indian Perfidious League
Justice Mudgal committee which
was appointed to investigate the alleged irregularities in the conduct of IPL
had delivered a scathing indictment of the people who ran the subsidiary of
BCCI as their private fiefdom. Not that BCCI itself is not a private fiefdom.
But we will come to that in a while.
An interesting point to note is
“mudgal” in Sanskrit stands for a blunt instrument which is used (not unlike a
mace) to clobber the opponents in a close hand-to-hand combat. Justice Mudgal was
true to his name. He has been refreshingly blunt and seems to have successfully
clobbered the wrong-doers.
When the Mudgal report came out, the
genuine cricket lovers feared the worst; one could sense that all sorts of
interested parties would be working overtime to dilute the report’s findings if
not scuttle it completely. Thankfully the Indian judiciary at the highest level
is made of sterner stuff and Chief Justice R M Lodha backed the Mudgal
committee findings to deliver a Richter-10 judgement.
Right from Day1 have the powers
in charge of BCCI (and IPL) tried to bend and twist rules to suit themselves, starting from allowing N Srinivasan to be an office bearer and a
team owner. With teams being owned by film stars and industrialists, the
culture which evolved was more like a circus or an outing at a film premiere. The
format was also attractive to big betting syndicates and what followed was a
situation which was dying to happen. Big boys were playing for crores tempting
some small players with loose change. Players who had not imagined in their
wildest dreams that they will ever strike it so big in their life, must have
been easy prey in the spot-fixing game; S. Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan, Ajit Chandila. And
this must be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I don’t think the full story
will ever see the light of the day.
What Justice Lodha has done is to
shred the veil behind which BCCI has
been hiding all its affairs till now claiming that no one had a right to
question it as it is a private body. It is high time that a public passion like
cricket is regulated. All other sports bodies are governed by Sports Councils
reporting to the Ministry (not that this has helped other sports much, but
maybe cricket with its huge fan-following may have a different future).
Our hearts must go out to Rahul
Dravid who has meticulously built up the Rajasthan Royals team, leading them
from front earlier and now mentoring the team successfully. But what can the shop floor manager do if the
Directors engage in some nefarious perfidious activities? The players and the
support staff of CSK and RR are in for a tough time; the better ones among them
will surely find a place in other teams. It is like a company closing down due
to recession. The assembly line workers and supervisors may not be at fault, it
is just their bad luck that they were with a wrong company and not with any of its
competitors who have managed to retain or improve their market share. Luck of
the draw, I guess.
Quite a few things remain to be
done. First and foremost is to ensure that LaMo is brought back and subjected
to a detailed scrutiny. You can expect more skeletons tumbling out for sure.
Let this be a cathartic moment for Indian cricket. Indian cricket has forever been “managed” by
politicians. We can see the unholy nexus operational across the party lines
ensuring a “fair share” for all (witness the amicable manner in which BJP and
NCP worked together in recent MCA elections). Is there a way by which we can
return cricket to democracy by ensuring that cricketers replace the doddering
old politicos, who may not be able to differentiate between a googly and a
chinaman, in running the game? Or is it too much to expect?
I am not too much worried about
the loss that IPL / BCCI will have to bear if the number of teams gets reduced
to 6. Their coffers are reportedly overflowing with various taxes they have
been refusing to pay under some pretext or other. The broadcasters and others,
if they have failed to build in safeguards in their contracts, may end up
losing some money, so be it. They will have to learn from their mistakes. The team owners are in the game because of the
potential profits and not for the love of the game, a business decision for
them. So if there is a downturn in business, they should either sell out or
bide their time for acche din to
return.
Anyway, I am putting in my bid
for CSK franchise. The franchise changed hands at Rs 5 Lakhs some time back.
Since subsequently it has seen substantial erosion in its brand-value, I think
Re 1 would be good valuation. If you agree, please support me in my bid. I can
offer my readers life-long free passes for all CSK games if my bid is accepted
(valid from IPL 11 onwards)
And somewhere in the DosaLand,
the Super King of Indian Perfidious League, the Neversaydie Sourface was contemplating his
situation. To his chagrin, he had discovered that even kings have a higher
authority to answer to. His empire seemed to be in ruins. His General Manager, who was running the affairs of his kingdom, had
been summarily exiled and there were rumours that even the Super King may face
a revolt. The Baron from the western
part of VadaPaavLand who had recently won back his baronetcy in the IslandCity*
had already made his intentions clear. Dukes from SweetLand and OrangeLand whom
the King had ridden roughshod over past few years seem ready to seize this
opportunity and march against the King. Another erstwhile Duke who was in a
self-imposed exile in FishnChipsLand was carrying out a sustained guerilla
warfare against him.
“Thank God” the Super King
thought, he had taken proper steps to safeguard his interests. He had already
diversified in the international market and maybe if not the local part of his
kingdom, he would be able to safeguard his overseas interests.
His throne seemed to be coming
off joints. He had desperately tried to cement this piece of furniture, but
nowadays with cement mixed with so much of fly-ash he was not sure that cement
alone would be enough. He needed to ensure that he could not get dislodged from
his throne at any cost. Things indeed looked very grim. But not for nothing was
Neversaydie named Neversaydie. He decided that he needed his neversaydieship
more at this juncture than any other stage in his life. The throne may have
become rickety, all he needed to do was to ensure that he maintains physical
contact with the seat on his throne. He
picked up his phone and told his secretary “Thambi, ek container Fevicol order karo, jaldi”.
LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis
19th July 2015
* For an exhilarating account of the travails of the Baron, please
read Major Crisis Averted in this
blog.
Disclaimer : The above article
does not refer to any real person living or dead (unless named specifically)
and readers are free to draw any parallels or establish resemblances between
the characters in this article and real person/s living or dead based on their imagination. Nor is this piece an advertisement of any
brand or product and users may use their own judgment in employing the products
/ brands under question especially when
you want to ensure that no one takes your
kursi away.
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