Cricket: The ICL and BCCI Standoff

The Indian Cricket League is possibly the biggest competitor to the BCCI since its inception. One area where they have unquestionably trumped BCCI is in having a website. Normally, it takes about a month to build a presentable website - 3-4 months if you want to do an elaborate job. BCCI could have had one 10 years ago, and I'm still waiting for them to establish themselves in cyberspace. 

The threat to BCCI's monopoly has been much discussed. Ironically, had BCCI not been as successful as it is, ICL would probably have had no competition and with the amount of money they are able to throw around, would have hired the whole Indian team and most of the fringe players as well. In effect, it is the success of BCCI and the Indian cricket team (which in my opinion is extremely competent - in fact it is India's only competent sporting team competing at world class level - and its players are trained in India unlike some of our neighbors), which stands in ICL's way.

At best, ICL is an entertainment show like "Chappar Phaad Kay" or others of that ilk. In Harsha Bhogle's words it comprises of "has-beens and never-will-bes". Mr. Bhogle is probably right with the possible exception of Mohammad Yousuf, who along with Ponting was the best batsman in the World in 2006. What it has achieved however is that it has roused the BCCI into action, and for that reason alone it has some merit. It can never be a serious threat to BCCI unless the clubs which are currently associated with State Associations which are members of BCCI switch affiliation from BCCI to ICL. ICL seems to have no ambition in this direction. I'm not entirely certain why BCCI reacted as petulantly as it did to ICL.

The broader question of monopoly is an interesting one - not from the point of view of whether or not there should be one, but whether there is one in the first place. The ICL website states for example that BCCI refused to "recognize ICL as a cricket league". I wonder why that is necessary. BCCI does not own cricket, either in India or anywhere else in the world. I don't think they can direct any player not to play in the ICL either. So why has ICL sought BCCI's permission at all? Is it because the BCCI employs all the fine players in the country - the very ones who do not make up a "reasonably competent cricket team"? Without involving BCCI (if not willingly, then by positioning themselves in conflict with BCCI), ICL would just be another game show. Indeed ICL has sought BCCI's attention, because such attention legitimizes ICL as a cricket thing.

Any agency which was genuinely interested in cricket and in administering the game well in India would have started at the bottom - built new clubs and invited existing clubs, built high quality local leagues, non-televised ones, in a handful of big cities with a cricketing tradition. Then they might have built an inter-city league based on these leagues. It would have built new facilities in those cities and a new parallel cricket structure to that of the BCCI affiliated clubs. It would have funded schools to build age group cricket teams and developed inter-school leagues. It would have built up loyalty. But that would have taken genuine effort and brought no immediate returns. I doubt whether Kapil Dev or Zee TV are interested in that sort of thing (and I'm not referring to over hyped fast bowling speed gun competitions, where the fastest bowler bowls at 125 kph). ICL does propose the creation of residential academies as a kind of a talent feed for their league. The prospect of a factory churning out cricketers must make traditionalists squirm. Considering the fact that it took Sachin Tendulkar 5 years of near full time serious organized cricket to get from being a rank newcomer to an India player (and he is a genius), one wonders what sort of time frame these academies have in mind.

Unless ICL can convince ICC to discard BCCI, they are not challenging a monopoly in any real sense, because the ICC has no intention of entertaining two Indian teams. The great thing about cricket is that it has traditionally been a truly international sport. I certainly hope that what we accept as the Indian cricket team remains a monopoly in the sense that there is only one national Indian side.

In any case Counterfeit BCCI is not the kind of challenge BCCI needs; for cricket's sake.