Cricket | Deep Backward Point

India v. West Indies: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

I know I’ve been harping on this all day, but I have one more thing to add. First, from Cricinfo:

In all, India are without Tendulkar, Dhoni, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Gambhir and Ashish Nehra for the ODIs. They will also have to do without Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir and Pujara for the Tests.

Here’s what I have to say: if India lose to the West Indies, perhaps someone of some importance will start taking this issue seriously.

If India wins against the West Indies, god help us. If India wins, it means two things:

An Indian B-team is good enough to beat the current top West Indies team at home.
No one will take seriously the schedule and conflict of interest issues highlighted by the the top-half of the team sitting this one out.

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Who Looks Out for Indian Cricket

Ultimately a lot of this boils down to conflict of interest, which is what Sharda Ugra was referring to in my last post. Who is looking out for the interest of “Indian cricket”?. Here’s Kartikeya at A Cricketing View:

If it is Leipus’s job to make sure that KKR players are able to play for KKR for the 6 or 7 weeks that the IPL is on, and forget about what happens during the other 45 weeks in the year, then he’s doing it well. KKR have insisted that Gambhir was “fit” to play their final game on May 25. But if his job is to be Gautam Gambhir’s doctor, then he’s done it poorly – Gambhir’s likely to miss a number of games because of an injury which worsened under Leipus’s care. These are two very different job descriptions, and it is up to you to decide which one you choose.

I’m not trying to fault the IPL or BCCI. Not entirely. But someone with authority has to look further than a couple of months, clear-headed, with only the good of Indian cricket at heart. There doesn’t seem to be anyone with the financial incentive and authority to do so. A player’s association would serve as counter-balance, but it may not be enough.

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May 27, 2011

The Atul Bedade Syndrome

The year was 1993 and the manager of the Indian cricket team, Ajit Wadekar, had just had a heart attack. Skipper Mohd. Azharuddin was working hard to keep the news from his team. India was about to face the UAE in their international debut. India was returning to Sharjah after a more than two year hiatus, for the first time since Aaqib Javed‘s humiliating hat-trick of LBWs.

More importantly, for the purpose of our little tale, a young man from my childhood home of Baroda was about to make his debut. The word on the street was that the only way he scored runs was in sixes. Atul Bedade brought a fierce reputation from the domestic game. He promised to be Jayasuriya before Jayasuriya, Yusuf Pathan before Yusuf Pathan. He walked in at four down with a few overs to go and left with a whimper.

And so it went with the rest of his career. As he would walk in, the commentary team would inevitably say something like “the bowler should be worried, this man can hit everything out of the park.” Atul Bedade was expected to and tried to hit everything out of the park. In seven months and thirteen matches he hit 158 runs, thirty of which came in sixes. And then he receded in to obscurity.

There were quite a few reasons I started thinking about Bedade recently.

Bedade may have thrived in the IPL. For a season or two, but maybe more.
Afridi’s recent batting career is a classic Bedade. More appropriately, Bedade’s career was like recent Afridi. Not a real comparison, of course– Afridi the bowler, and Afridi the (former) explosive batsman have been terrifying limited over opponents. Alhamdulilah, indeed.
I can only think of three batsmen who have lived up to the kind of hype I addressed above for long innings and a long career: Sehwag, Jayasuriya and Gilchrist. Not coincidentally, all of them have done well in Test cricket.

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May 23, 2011

Kubrick and Cricket

How the droogs look in A Clockwork Orange came about:

I was over at [Kubrick’s] house, you know, looking for stuff to do. And I didn’t like anything there, really. They had a big box of hats, some with feathers. I thought that was pretty lame. So I say, “Look, I’ve got my Cricket gear in my car.” So I went to the car and got my Cricket gear. And he says, “Oh yeah, I love the white.” And so I put it on. And he goes, “Oh put the protector on the outside.” And I went, “Great idea.” So I wore the protector on the outside like a codpiece. He goes, “This could be like the middle ages. I like this look.” And that’s how the look of the Droogs came; because I had my Cricket stuff in the back of my car.

via Malcolm McDowell and Leon Vitali Interview A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

A Clockwork Orange

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May 21, 2011

The IPL Cheerleader Controversy: Why the Surprise?

Before I wade in to the Gabriella Pasqualotto story, I would like to say this: I like the Alternative Cricket Almanack, I think the writers have a great sense of humor and they’re generally top-notch. Also, I realize I’m late to this story.

Here’s the background: Alternative found an IPL cheerleader willing to blog about her experiences. She blogged about her experiences, including some remarks about certain cricketers. She was fired from her job.

Outrage ensued.

My question: why is anyone surprised? This is precisely what I expected the day I saw the first blog post. And the first blog post wasn’t even harmful. The question to ask yourself is this: if you blogged about people you worked with at your job, including details about their personal life, do you think you would get to keep your job? I think not.

Alternative claims that all the IPL administrators had to do was discreetly tell them to take the blog posts down, and that is what would have happened. I’m inclined to believe them, though in my experience when a blogger gets a take-down request like that, their first instinct is to blog about it. So I’m not sure the IPL would have taken that route– bloggers are not known to be discreet. Especially not ones that have been printing details about cheerleaders and cricketers at after-parties.

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May 20, 2011

The Pakistan Captaincy: Part XV

Misbah-ul-Haq is now officially the 15th captain of the Pakistan ODI team since Imran Khan. I know, because I’ve been keeping track. It’s an obsession with me.

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May 19, 2011

The 2nd Last Thing I Write About Willow

So it’s been a fascinating couple of days. I’ve spoken with a number of people about the Willow saga, including the CEO of Willow TV, Mr. Vijay Srinivasan. Which leads to make only the following points:

Everything I wrote in my article can be backed up by reputable media sources (and, I’ve been told, independent corroboration by people close to Willow), except for my final leap of logic: that their web site woes were linked to their financial woes. I had two narratives, one of a failing web site and another of a deteriorating financial situation. One began in April, the other ended in April. As I told Mr. Srinivasan, it wasn’t rocket science to make the connection. If I got it wrong, so be it.
I regret one thing in my original post: the title. I tried to be dramatic after spending an entire long article making sure I had all the facts right. It’s something I see in mainstream media all the time, but I thought I was better than that. Sometimes when you think your blog doesn’t have an audience, you do stupid things. Rule #37 of blogging: Always assume the person you are writing about will read your blog and sue you for it. Mr. Vijay Srinivasan is not suing me, of course, but is disappointed. That is the only part of my blog Mr. Srinivasan told me he took issue with. He says they’re doing fine financially.
I was asked why I didn’t get in touch with Willow before posting the story. Simple answer: they don’t put any contact information out in the open other than their support email. And no one answers their support email. I do not understand how a web site can go dead in this day and age. It’s not that hard to put up a simple “Great things coming soon, we’re working on improvements to the back-end” (which is what Mr. Srinivasan said Willow is up to at the moment).
A word of advice for Willow and Mr. Srinivasan: this is the Internet. The only way to beat the bad press is to get your voice out there. If you had a presence on the Internet, either through simple emails to your customers, or a responsive twitter/facebook account, or just old-fashioned updates to your website like they did in the ’90s, you could have avoided all of this.

A final note: I love Willow TV, with all its quirks. They provided the best cricket experience I have ever had– including the 16 years I’ve lived in India. Has anyone ever been able to watch cricket on their phone, and then seamlessly continue on their laptop, and then seamlessly continue on their iPad, and then effortlessly continue on their TV? It was great. Which is what made the subsequent fall even more dissapointing.

I hope I don’t have to write more about Willow. Two days, and I’m mostly sick of it. I hope they just get back to being awesome so I can forget about this business. I don’t want to be known as the blog about financial dealings behind media rights for cricket streaming in America.

It’s just not cricket.

P.S. If you really want to keep track of the sordid story of media rights for cricket, Nikhil Pahwa at Medianama is your man. He’s been doing it much longer and much better than I have.

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May 18, 2011

How Lalit Modi and the BCCI (Almost) Killed Willow TV

UPDATE: Willow TV CEO, Vijay Srinivasan, tells me that Willow is alive and well. Willow will broadcast the English summer. Updates to the site are underway. He has disputed the article. Every financial deal I have reported in this article is backed-up by either an article in a reputable news source or an official corporate release. I have simply laid it all out on one page. Perhaps reports of Willow’s death are exaggerated, but to all appearances they have been on life support since March.

I’ve tracked this story for a couple of months now, both as a blogger and as a long-time Willow TV customer, and I finally have a breakthrough. Willow TV was a victim of the BCCI/Modi saga. The details are as follows:

Willow TV— the website that has provided legal live streaming of cricket on the Internet in the United States for 8 years– is on life support. The web site has not been updated since the World Cup. There are no working links to subscribe to their service. Customer support has been non-responsive. The silent masses wonder– what’s up with Willow TV? (see Samir Chopra’s recent woes that inspired my investigation.)

What Happened to Willow?

Willow TV was acquired by a company called Global Cricket Ventures in 2010. Earlier, there had been interest from Anil Ambani, but after that deal fell through, GCV stepped in. GCV had the rights to the Champions League T20 as well as the IPL. Add to that the World Cup rights in 2011, Willow TV seemed destined for greatness. In late 2010, an India-focused private equity firm called Elephant Capital invested $10 million in GCV for a 50% stake. The Willow TV World Cup broadcast, after some initial hiccups, was a success. They streamed the matches to browsers, IPTV devices (PS3, Roku, Wii, etc.), iPhones, Androids and iPads everywhere and even got their own channel on satellite television.

It was a great pleasure and gave US viewers a taste of a possible future where cricket was available all the time on any device of their choosing.

Enter: Lalit Modi

I don’t have all the details, but here is what I know: GCV sub-licensed the IPL on-line and mobile broadcast rights from World Sports Group (WSG). Last June, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) scrapped the agreements for global media rights with WSG. The reason? An alleged improper facilitation fee of $90 million paid by broadcast firm by Multi-Screen Media (MSM, owners of Set MAX TV Channel) to WSG. The BCCI claimed that former IPL chief Lalit Modi had struck the deal independently without prior knowledge of the board.

Coup de grâce? Lalit Modi is the father-in-law of Gaurav Burman, one of the directors of Elephant Capital.

So, suddenly, WSG->GCV->Willow TV was left without rights to the IPL and CLT20. This time the IPL online rights went to Indiatimes. And everything went further downhill.

In March 2011, Elephant Capital decided to pull their investment out of GCV and since then all their online properties have gone silent. It appears they have no more money to run the operations.

WSG went to court after being stripped of the TV rights, and it seems the court has instructed them to settle with BCCI in a civil court. The BCCI, for its part, is in no mood to do business with anyone from the Lalit Modi era.

And that’s what happened to Willow TV. They were at their peak, offering a great service across a range of devices when the rug got pulled from under them. Their only crime was that they were acquired by a company who was in bed with a company who allegedly did a shady deal with Lalit Modi.

[Of course, this doesn’t excuse the fact that they are unresponsive, opaque and apparently, giving people a hard time when they want to cancel their subscription.]

Epilogue

Yet– hope springs eternal. If you have a working subscription, the current Pakistan tour of West Indies works just fine in a browser, though they’ve dropped IPTV device, phones and tablet support. And I did get a mysterious email from them a month ago about IPL streaming that made me very happy for a couple of weeks. But mostly, it’s a near-dead web site and a service on life support. Indiatimes streams IPL in the US with a three hour delay. A three hour delay for an IPL game. I have no words.

For a few weeks in 2011, Willow TV showed us a glimpse of a possible tomorrow. Cricket available where you want it, when you want it. I miss it already. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 17, 2011

The B Team Goes to the West Indies

Kartikeya is disappointed in the Indian seniors for choosing not to play the ODI series in West Indies:

I hope the West Indies teach India a lesson in the upcoming ODI games. I understand the need for rest, but to choose the IPL over International Cricket is unconscionable, especially when playing for India is high paying employment.

I empathize. But I also find it interesting that while the rest of the world frets over the health of Test cricket, the top Indian players choose to ignore meaningless ODI series.

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May 12, 2011

Finally, a Test Match

Good morning. At long last, we have a test match.

Personally, I’m interested to see how Bishoo, Rampaul and Simmons fair in the longer game. That will tell us a lot about the future of West Indies cricket.

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