Cricket Apartheid – ICL players are the new untouchables
A new apartheid of sorts is being practiced in world cricket, courtesy BCCI, seeded and nurtured by that villain for cricket and CEO of the IPL Modi.
Cricinfo has reported that BCCI withdrew Sachin Tendulkar and Dinesh Karthick from playing a Masters T20 match in Wellington between New Zealand Cricket Players Association (NZCPA) and Australian Cricketers Association.
Reason?
The NZCPA team consisted of Hamish Marshall who plays for Royal Bengal Tigers team in the Indian Cricket League (ICL).
This appears childish behavior by BCCI. Already BCCI and Modi together have destroyed the future of many talented youngsters who chose to play for ICL T20 championships due to lack of exposure under the BCCI banner.
Mr. Modi should be ejected out of Cricket if the game should survive as a clean sport. He can be a great organizer but a bad sport. He is not the one to decide who plays cricket in and for the country. He should know that without players there can be no organization.
If anything, ICL should only be viewed as an additional competitive platform for cricketers to nurture their talents and also make money.
Most of these cricketers, who joined ICL are those who didn’t get the right amount of recognition and exposure under the BCCI banner. By banning them from all forms of BCCI regulated domestic cricket, BCCI is only causing harm to the game.
Whether or not BCCI likes it, IPL would not have come about if ICL was not conceived. IPL is nothing but a glorified, country boards patronized version of ICL. I do not think any other country is as averse to ICL as BCCI is. In fact, the approach of ICC shows that it is not averse to recognizing ICL but for the stand taken by BCCI.
I would like to know what BCCI will do if Hamish Marshall gets selected to the Test team? Will Modi and Co., instruct the authorities to change the test squad of the other country? Can they become selectors of another country?
If the BCCI is really interested in cricket, it should instead provide monetary support and visibility to ICL matches instead of thwarting the other organization’s attempts to provide sports entertainment to the cricket fans. The second edition of ICL certainly proved that, given right visibility, it has potential to be popular amongst the cricket fans.
True cricket lovers should probably do the following during the IPL:
a) Take banners and placards protesting IPL’s attitude towards ICL signed cricketers
b) In every city where IPL is held the spectators should boycott at least one match completely
These actions will get important media attention and probably help in hitting some sixth sense into BCCI and Mr. Lalit Modi.
Watch this video in which Kapil Dev has rightly lashed out at the BCCI:
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Good article. I believe the ICL you were referring to, is the one organized by the great Kapil Dev with support from other World Cup 1983 winning team and Zee group.
sir
your article is very interesting. i think we should ban ipl if they practice such practices. cricket is not the monopoly of BCCI. It is a game of all and all young aspirants should get the chance. That is the reason why ICL is born. KAPIL HAS A VISION TO GROOM YOUNG TALENT, MODI HAS GOT A VISION TO RUIN THE TALENTS. He should be kicked out of BCCI.
You said it rightly. This Modi should be evacuated from the cricketing arena. I admire his marketing ability to mint money on an unofficial kind of cricket version.
But this can never be a criteria to keep him anywhere near cricket anymore.
Even after stopping Saching from 20-20 I am still surprised that he had not received any strong comment from media and biggies and ofcourse bookies/cookies.
Hi
It is not only yours, it must be the feeling of millions in the country. In my eyes, BCCI looks like a business organization and in fact, Cricket now has become a real business, bigger than anything in India. It is definitely not fair on the part of BCCI to ban ICL or any other.
I think BCCI is conducting games not to promote cricket, but to make big money in a short time. Very soon they will loose big. Cricketers now a days will not bother about results, they will just play their best and we should also be prepared to accept it, since it is a company run by BCCI and we are not its share holders.
BCCI does not even respects Kapil Dev.
@Leminar,
Yes. I referred to the ICL by stitched together by Zee group and chaired by the great Kapil Dev.
@Pantoola,
IPL should not be banned but the wrong practices should be. I think players in the IPL circuit should also sign up with ICL. That will make IPL see sense.
@Vijayasarathy,
I absolutely agree with you. Lalith Modi has packaged IPL well. But it is only because it has BCCI patronage and players feared banishment if they sign up with ICL. This is absolutely bad. If you think about it, players with the Packer series met the same fate just about three decades back, but whatever innovation we see today in the one day format is the outcome of Packer series, including Channel 9 and the great visual treat we get in the form of fantastic camera angles.
@Sunder,
It is sad that BCCI is treating such greats as Kapil Dev shabbily. Even worse is the treatment meted out to the budding cricketers.
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