At least on BCC! as of today...
Posted a blog on Bored in defense of Lalit Modi. I post my blog and move on to the Indian news TV websites and what do I see ?
I see a story about one of my favorites talking about the issue. Sharp tongued Bishen Bedi lashing it out on the whole BCCI & IPL establishement.
Going by what the acerbic Paaji has said in the interview, it looks like Angad wouldn't be back for the next IPL season.
Keep talking sir !! We love you talking
As I was flipping on my bed trying to catch some sleep after a "full" sake dinner, I could hear my inner voice. The fact that I had one glass too many of sake made me hear my inner voice loud and clear.
It was unhappy, unhappy because I am the one blogger left in this world who hasn’t spoken / written about something called the "Subprime crisis", too bad. I have been hearing people at the golf course, pubs, office coffee machine, lunches, dinners, malls and so on. People who were speaking about Subprime, Lehman Brothers, Merrill lynch etc.
I remember one very economics & finance savvy gentleman talking about how his favorite Mac has gone bankrupt and how it was lucky to be bankrolled by the Fed Authority because they didn’t want the Mac's to be dead!!, little did he know the difference between the Mac as in burgers and the Mac as in mortgages. With all this action happening around, I didn’t want to be left out.
And here is my two bit about subprime.
I think post the real estate & financial markets the phenomenon of subprime is going to hit cricket, precisely the IPL. One might wonder how?!!
It is pretty simple, to understand this one should understand the basics of what subprime crisis means.
It started with giving a loan / mortgage to a person who doesn’t deserve it and then the lending agencies inability to recollect the money. In other words, a mortgage or loan given to a person whose credit rating is not good enough which doesn't repay the lender. Now what connection does this have with cricket?
Recently 13 players from Bangladesh have gone and joined ICL, a huge exodus of talent for a small country like Bangladesh. Big Brother, oops!! BCCI announced that they would take care of this by getting more Bangladeshi players in the next IPL auction.
We all know where Bangladesh's cricket credit rating stood before the exodus, more precisely the T20 rating. Now with talent gone, let us close our eyes for a minute and try and think where and how their cricket credit rating would stand now. And now a Freddie Mac or a Fannie May (the BCCI / ICL) is trying to finance them (by taking more of them in the auction).
I was thinking what might happen.
There are two scenarios,
1. As usual it might just be a BCCI / IPL rhetoric and nothing might happen
2. They might go ahead and take more of the Bangladesh players to the auction
If they indeed take more players from Bangladesh, then there is a potential opportunity for us to see a cricket subprime. If you remember the definition of subprime, undeserving or uninteresting people getting money is what caused the subprime.
With Srilankan cricket allowing ICL cricketers to play domestic cricket there, if a couple of more boards follow suit then there is a good enough probability of talent (read people with good credit rating) drifting the other side. If this happens, then going by the financial precedent, gone would be the IPL & BCCI.
I am not sure if there is any federal setup equivalent in cricket, even if we (mistakenly) consider that ICC is one then I am not sure if they would want to bail the Big Brother out.
I am seriously considering a business proposal... I think I have a brilliant idea, a nice business proposition, unique to the present day Indian sports TV market, which could make pots of money. Yes, I am thinking of starting a league...
Let's call it the Indian Rifle shooting League. I am sure the IRL would give IPL, ICL and any other alphabet between an "I & L" a run for money, given the present climate.
The eternal optimist I am, I think with the terrible loss to Lanka, age drowning our superstars and with more talented opposition, it is time. It is time we announced the beginning, of the end of Indian cricket and superstardom. Let's welcome the arrival of the great Indian Rifle shooting League.
We could actually make our cricket superstars standby for targets and clay pigeons. I don't think they would find this role way different from what they are doing now... Standing the middle for a while and getting shot out or down!!
Venture capital firms (and angel investors!!), if you are reading this contact me now. This is a first come first offer and you know how brilliant a proposal this is. Abhinav Bindra, after his 10m air rifle gold in the Beijing Olympics would be the new Indian sports hero, at least for the next couple of months. I am sure the Indian cricket team would continue with their good work in Lanka even in the ODIs, so the sooner we start this league the better for our ROIs. Else the Indian cricket team might start winning again (a couple of matches here and there or an odd series of course!!) and we might have competition.
Let's act quickly and change the trend of cricket and cricketers being demigods and superstars. I am not writing this because I have suddenly started disliking cricket after India's disastrous loss to Lanka. I am writing this out of concern for the other (great) Indian sports, the state of Indian hockey today being a prime example. With an Olympic gold in 10m air rifle category, this might be our opportunity to infuse some blood and revive the other sports in India and start respecting the sportsmen and women who (actually!!) represent India in the international arena and bring us glory.
Let's congratulate the Indian Olympic contingent and especially Abhinav Bindra. You have made us Indians proud.
Friends of mine know how big a fan I am of this man, Rahul Dravid. When one of them said Rahul should do some domestic duties before he came back to play test cricket after his dismal tour down under, I fumed. I swore by Dravid and shouted on top of my voice that he is the best batsman Indian cricket has had in the recent past and would continue to be in the near future too. I was sure I would never change my opinion, for I love the way Rahul plays his cricket. His exquisite extra cover drive, the silken ondrive, he is the best. The friend responded with a call for me to get out of my dream world, the world where Rahul Dravid, The Wall is the king.
Slightly shaken, I started doing some math on Rahul's recent performances. The stand out was the recent home series against South Africa, the Chennai test to be precise. This is where Rahul joined the 10,000 club and supposedly scored a scintillating century. A second look at the score card told me that my dear Rahul had played a gem of an inning, for himself. The innings he played was as fast as a millipede's quick march, made sure India drew the test, when victory was at sight. A must have won test was drawn, and India went on to lose the next test on a pacy wicket in Ahmedabad. No doubt, the series was drawn but India could easily have won the series convincingly had Rahul paced his Chennai innings to the needs of the team than that of his selfish motives. And now I started agreeing with my friend who had remarked earlier that Rahul needs to play some Ranji before he gets back to his original best at the international level.
The next match of Rahul I watched was the IPL, Bangalore (Vs.) Mumbai. It was a T20 match and Bangalore were chasing Mumbai's 165 in 20. And Rahul opened the innings with Shiv Chanderpaul. He as usual was at his millipedal best. He had no clue as to what Shaun Pollock was bowling to him. The closest I had seen a bowler being that successful before was when I bowled to my two and a half year old son, when he was two and was learning to hold his bat.
As Sunil Gavaskar in the commentary remarked, he was trying to settle down before he opened up, in a T20 match. It seemed like he didn’t want his team to win. I was thinking someone from the Bangalore camp would send a message to Rahul on field that there was no draw in the T20 format and restore some sanity in the middle. It was either a win or otherwise.
Boucher and Kallis managed to pull off a near impossible victory in the end. There would still be people who would say Rahul set a stage for the victory. If I were the coach of the Bangalore team, I would frankly not want a victory set up like this. Nerve-wracking victories like this would cause fatigue and would tire the minds of the team.
Being a big fan of Rahul, I don't want to see him kicked out of cricket someday. I would hence recommend that he took a quick decision. Analyse where he stands today honestly and do something about it quickly. As Greg Chappell told Sourav some years ago, there is life outside cricket too. I am sure Rahul is sane enough to know this truth. A quick decision by him now might save a buck or two for Mr Mallya and make the cricket Bangalore team plays resemble the T20 brand, at least.
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