That’s my headline. Here is Scyld Berry’s headline for the telegraph: India ready to extend domination of world cricket by proposing rules to allow an ICC president-for-life.
Over at Cricinfo today, Osman Samiuddin makes the case for a Pakistan cricket players association:
There has never been a greater need for one than now. Shahid Afridi’s needless legal battle with the board is only the latest in a burgeoning collection. Shoaib Akhtar’s fight with Nasim Ashraf, the former chairman, went to the Lahore High Court in 2008. Pakistan’s ICL players took the PCB to the Sindh High court as well. These will not be the end.
I would argue that India needs one as well. The current Sri Lankan Premier League dispute is a perfect case. The BCCI has barred Indian players from appearing in the SLPL, saying that the players may find themselves in a bad contract with a private organization with no recourse. This is the kind of dispute a players association should handle. Players must get advice from a body that represents the players. Not the sponsors, or the team owners, or politicians, or hidden agendas, but the players.
This is largely a conflict of interest issue. What is the mandate of the BCCI? The BCCI has multiple interests to look out for– players, broadcasters, “cricket”, sponsors, politicians, money, state associations. So what happens when two or more of these interests are in opposition?
So far, the BCCI has walked a tight-rope quite well. It’s especially difficult when you can simultaneously run the risk of angering Maharashtra supremo Sharad Pawar, and god-to-billions Sachin Tendulkar, and some of the richest men in the country in Ambani and Mallya. Keeping all these interests straight is difficult, if not impossible.
And sooner or later, I predict, there will be a breaking point. Already the injuries to Sehwag and Gambhir, aggravated through the IPL, have brought up significant conflict of interest issues. The ICL was another issue where players could have used collective bargaining and better advice.
∞
India has a players association. Or at least had one. It was launched with much fanfare in 2002, Arun Lal was its secretary and Dravid was pushing for its recognition as late as 2008. Anyone know what became of the Indian Professional Cricketers Association?
Wes has an interview up with the German wicketkeeper, Satya Srinivas. Yes, they have cricket in Germany, shut up, and listen:
The German captain Asif Khan described in an interview how difficult it is to always take a week off from work in order to travel to the international tournaments, how do you personally tackle this problem, is your boss cooperative?
I cannot obviously involve my boss in all this. I am allowed a certain number of holidays in a calendar year and I need to accommodate the cricket tournaments for Germany in this schedule. The people at my company are really appreciative of the fact that I represent a national team. But my first responsibility is obviously towards my job.
But there are people in our team who work as taxi-drivers or work in restaurants, who basically take time off without getting paid during such kind of cricket tournaments for Germany. Everyone basically plays for the passion of the game.
It’s quite an interview. I love this game.
I had saved this story away during the World Cup, but never got around to posting it. It’s still funny. A Sri Lankan World Cup song, billed as the “Official National Cheer” for the team, was pulled by broadcasters after their president said it was offensive:
“Come on, come on,” runs the song, urging supporters to raze West Indies coconut trees, break the jaws of sharks in New Zealand, melt the snow on Indian mountains, and feed bird food to kangaroos in Australia.
It promises that the Sri Lankan side will shake the roof of the “English palace” – presumably Queen Elizabeth’s residence – and “will shatter the roof of heaven” with their sixes.
I have a feeling that if all the snow on Indian mountains melted, Sri Lanka would be submerged. Just saying.
UPDATE: As CricSis blogger Shridhar Jaju pointed out in the comments, Jaidev Unadkat beat Abhinav Mukund to this distinction.
A new era has begun. Abhinav Mukund will open the batting today against West Indies.
Why is Abhinav Mukund special? He is the first Indian Test player to have been born after Sachin Tendulkar made his debut. There will be many more, but he is the first.
Abhinav Mukund, born January 6, 1990. 52 days after Sachin Tendulkar's debut
Samir Chopra elaborates on the story he told in the Boredwaani podcast a couple of weeks ago. Some times, even one day cricket demands patience from its viewers:
When the 1996 World Cup rolled around, I was living with my girlfriend in Manhattan, and working in the Bronx. The day-night games began early in the morning and ended in the afternoon. I would only be able to watch an over or two live before I had to leave for work to begin the long subway ride on the D train, uptown to the Bronx. The extended-play mode of the videocassette, and an extremely patient girlfriend came to the rescue. I would leave after having set up the VCR with a tape in EP mode; my girlfriend, who worked at Rockefeller Center, would walk back at lunchtime to our apartment, change the tape, and then return to work; the two tapes added up to more than eight hours, more than enough for a one-day international.
Though, someone should have taken mercy and warned him about the Calcutta semi-finals.
I was looking at the fabled ICC Future Tours Programme to see what’s going on in cricket over the next year:
Future Tours Programme Excerpt: 2011
Each column is the schedule for a single team between April 2011 and October 2011. Notice the two blank columns? Those are two teams who have no international cricket between the World Cup and October.
Those teams are New Zealand and South Africa.
Come October, South Africa still has an interesting few months. They host Australia for 2 Tests and a handful of ODIs, followed by Sri Lanka for another 2 Tests and another handful of ODIs.
New Zealand, on the other hand, has the most dull 2011 in the universe. They play Zimbabwe twice with a tour of Australia sandwiched between. Pathetic.
These days, it’s hard to figure out which cricket establishment is the most dysfunctional.
Behind door #1, we have Pakistan, stuck in a perpetual retire-ban-fix-rinse-repeat cycle. Behind door #2, we have West Indies, who keep their best batsman out of the team out of pure spite. Behind a newly emerging door #3, we have Cricket Australia, who were taken by surprise when a feisty Simon Katich pulled an Afridi by taking them on publicly.
Hashan Tilakaratne of the United National Party, not to be confused with the United People's Free Alliance
But today, I want to talk about door #4: Sri Lanka. Let me connect the dots in this strange political brew.
ECB has taken to painting crickets (the insect) to promote T20 cricket (the game). Liam Brickhill reports:
Following their photoshoot, the logoed crickets were re-released back into the wild outside the stadium of their representative team. The organisers of the stunt hope children and adults will find the brightly-coloured insects – presumably before any birds or insectivorous mammals spot them – and ultimately get behind their county.
Good luck, crickets. I’m sure being brightly-colored makes it easier to avoid cricket-eating creatures.
As I watched India (barely) successfully chase 225 with 3 wickets to spare against West Indies on Saturday, it seemed that a pattern had emerged. This match resembled many Indian chases in recent times, where it would appear the batting line-up failed, but it would still be a successful chase because they bat so deep.
So I went over their recent record in seven consecutive successful chases since the World Cup began:
Deep Backward Point 