Well boss, who can put some sense into the BCCI. I think the only way this is possible is a combination of reasonable ex-Cricketers like Gavaskar, Shastri, Srikanth, Sourav, Manjrekar some of whom seem to enjoy some rapport with the BCCI plus seniors like Sachin, Rahul, Dhoni, Laxman and Yuvaraj. Problem with Indian cricket is there is never a single common voice as seen with all the Cricketers association formed in the last 20 odd years. Power what a useful thing.

Excellent article Suresh. Someone needs to get it thru BCCI's collective thick heads is that they are hurting cricket in general by their arrogant and unnecessary stance against ICL. This has specially hurt Pak & Bang cricket because both have lost quality players to the ICL ban and have deprived the fans from watching these players in international cricket.

Why can't parallel leagues IPL/ICL exist so that they can compete each other for a final match against one team from IPL against another from ICL. This will generate more interest and money which BCCI loves the most.

If BCCI continues with it's current arrogant stance against ICL, sooner or later it's going to blow back in their collective faces and I for one hope it does.

Excellent article, while growing up I never imagined that Cricket will be such a mess when a bunch of people (4-5) are trying to control a game that is being loved by millions and stopping us from seeing our heroes play a game .... on a lighter note I hope ICL players donot use Gillette razors for shaving, what if BCCI bans them in all then ICC countries? :) imagine how many brands will we stop using .... i mean do they (ICL players) have some infectious disease that we have to maintain some distance otherwise Sachin or Dinesh might also get infected ..... Seriously they should change BCCI management, because they are just a bunch of jokers trying to control everything and the funny thing is that all other boards are accepting all their stupid conditions :)

after a blog entry like that...the BCCI may make u obsolete

Thank you Mr. Menon. I'm sure you're speaking for countless other cricket lovers in the country. It's important that writers as respected as yourself speak out against the ridiculous policies of the BCCI before they reach the levels you've spoken of here. As much as I hope that views such as these would be recognized and acted upon by the BCCI, I fear otherwise. That's because, while you write with the interests of Indian cricket at heart, that is the last thing on the minds of the BCCI and IPL bosses. Just after the latest IPL auction, Lalit Modi opined in a TV interview that IPL is a succesful combination of good business and Bollywood. He forgot one important ingredient: cricket. I suppose that says it all.

I totally agree with Mr. Menon. The board's stand on ICL is totally getting out of hand. By pulling sachin and karthik out of the game, they haven't shown NZC who is boss all they have shown is their behaviour as big lousy snobs. What is worse is that they are tainting the entire nations image with their silly acts. The sports ministry should really take matters into their hands and show the board who REALLY is the boss. This is democracy, the ERA of monarchy has passed. I think all cricket lovers should boycott the games conducted by BCCI, stop their money that will bring them down to earth and reality, that will really shatter the greed and pride of these good for nothing adminstrators. It is a big turnoff.

Well written Suresh, for once I agree with you. The reference to 1984 & the BCCI's Big Brother attitude is unmistakable. The 20-20 leagues are more of commercial enterprises than sporting events. As such, the moves by the BCCI using all clout at it's disposal,smack of monopoly.Perhaps, all that remains to be seen is the BCCI's own version of room 101. Their ego has got the better of them. I would not go as far as suggesting a splitting of world cricket, but somebody somehow needs to put these guys in their place. Hell, whoever called Lalit Modi the Moses of cricket??

Suresh Menon, you r the man, very well said, how long, how long, bcci would force the issues on cricket world just at the back of advertisement industry, if they don't resolve the icl 's issue, for sure bcci would see biggest set back in their popularity amongst all the icc members and most importantly fans(non indians). one day they would surely say, enough is enough, and lets play the gentlemen's game like real gentlemen.
all members including the icc trying to milk the cow(bcci), how far the milk is gonna take the cow, we'll have to wait and see.

Excellent point that I always knew. "BCCI cannot exist without other boards." India must play against somebody. If teams such as Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand get together and decide to boycott India, because its a bully. Then the BCCI will have no choice but to change its ways.

When will the other boards wake up and stop playing votebank politics?

Very good article!!!! I think this should be used in Business schools as a case study -- What happens when Govt.(I know not technically here) decides to run things -- how it can create a dangerous monopoly which can harm private enterprises. U.S. which is going through some kind of nationalization(banks), would really be interested in this study.

On the cricket front, it in some ways embodies what Absolute Power without responsibility can do

For the sake of cricket, cricket fans should show IPL who is the boss here? Let's boycott IPL till BCCI amends their behavior.

I only wish Sachin and KArthik had gone ahead and played irrespective of BCCI's order. The board does not have the guts to touch Sachin, and he could have made a strong statement. Alas, I guess he has a "dont take panga" route.

If tournaments like ICL are going to be made official, any corporate house can make leagues like this & the control of national boards will not be there.

Fine article. Needs to be more of it.

This particular virus has spread to Australia. Former Test pacemen Jason Gillespie was banned by the ACB from taking part in a 2 week coaching clinic for juniors because he has an ICL contract. This is beyond ridiculous!

I recall a lot of resentment in places like India & Pakistan about the alleged heavy handedness of England & Australia when they more or less ran world cricket. The BCCI will soon make those seem like halycon days. Arrogance, corruption & nasty little power trips will do more damage to cricket than the money will do good. It would indeed be sad ti seen cricketers in India & elsewhere suffer because a small group of officials are on a power trip.

Always thought it was a wonderful Irony that BCCI was also a corrupt Pakistani bank that funded terrorists & drug dealers. What's in a name?

Excellent article Suresh! I think your last point is very pertinent and hitting and people like ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar are now acting as commentary box advertisers for BCCI. It's shameful to say to the very least. Few days back i read an article from Harsha and it was pitiful to see him write that it would be very kind of BCCI to forgive ICL players as everyone makes mistakes in their life. This is plain ridicluous and Harsha can go lick Lalit Modi's boots as he is his boos but don't expect self respecting talented and hard working ICL players to do the same.

Anyone who has been following cricket news for the past 2 years should be used to news like this one...

similar story bekons each time.. foreign boards try to play fair game by their players.. BCCI makes unfair claims, and after some haggling get their way... I mean its starting to get repetitive and boring...

I guess some power also lies in the Indian consumer... They can spend their time following the ICL and thus generate revenue for them... or atleast help them generate funds to fight the litigation....

Also I wonder what would happen if a player of Sachin's stature happens to make a public statement being critical of the administration... Or if Sachin is looking after his own prospects (but they cant possibly ban him...), how about Kumble saying something, he doesnt have any associations with them left...

Fascism only grows when people accept its inevitability....

Thanks for the article man , that expressed the collective disgust at at stupid act from BCCI. The game is missing out on wonderful talent like Shane Bond, Imran Nazir and countless Indian first class players because of the efo problem of a few board members. This is not acceptable at all . Why doesn't anyone sue the board?

what the bcci are doing is stopping others selling the same product as them in the business world it wouldnt be allowed so why in here the credit crunch is already affecting million lets boycot ipl and them feel like the rest of us

Good! The message should reach BCCI.The cricket fans will not tolerate this rude behaviour. If there is no fans there is no money for BCCI. True cricket fan's will not like this kind of disrespect on the players.. The world class player's are no more in the international arena..This is the great loss for cricket..

Nonsense article. Where did the other boards come into the picture. BCCI did not ask NZ masters to do anything or the australian masters for that matter. They just decided that their players were not going to play that match.. Now are we saying that BCCI cannot even do that??

Great article, it reflects an ordinary cricket fan's frustration with the proceedings as well. We'd like the respective boards of our countries to stop being manipulated because the Indian board has money. At the moment, India has a great team, but the board's antics do take the credit away from team India.

What you say has nothing to do with cricket or XYZ, it has to do with the freedom to act or to speak or to breathe or to ..., which all of us have a birth right to.

ICL ..It was started to promote grass root level cricket .What I see is it is full of retired crickters.Thats all.What next Zee TV cricket team ,Sony Tv cricket team , NDTV cricket team ,ESPN cricket team ,Star plus cricket team ????? You cannot make policies on sympathy.How many training camps ICL have in small towns and villages ?

Suresh,

Forget BCCI - what makes you think Cricinfo OR ICC are interested in fairplay / betterment of cricket ?
In any professional environment - if an individual chose to take a wrong decision, rather than use all the resources provided by his employer to get it right, his integrity would be questioned publicly & he would have lost his job.
Bucknor has refused to consult a 3rd umpire & got 2 decisions wrong against India. ICC has taken no action against Bucknor, BCCI have done ICC a favour & not raised an integrity issue there.
I have written to Dave Richardson of ICC management in response to a request from him, documenting examples of what looks like racial discrimination by ICC Staff, requesting them to help me understand how it is not racial discrimination. I have sent ICC several reminders directly / through blogs, there is no response from ICC.
In order to save ICC the need to be honest, Cricinfo's moderators have just stopped publishing my reminders.

We need more vociferous supporters like you to keep the BCCI sane. I would exhort you to encourage all your friends in media to write similar articles and/or provide electronic media coverage and help everyone brave the tyranny of BCCI and stop the insult of legends like Kapil Dev and others, many of whom are the reason why cricket is so popular in india today and why BCCI is so rich.

Great article Suresh. I really enjoy it when people from the sub-continent stand up and say how badly the BCCI is behaving. Unfortunately any time someone from England, Australia or NZ (my home country) say that the BCCI is being heavy-handed when it comes to the ICL, we are accused of being racist. I hope India stands up and makes itself heard. India is the power in world cricket at the moment and I have no problem with that. Any country that loves cricket as much as India should be powerful. However it is time that the Indian people stood up and said to the BCCI "you are ruining the image of India!" The ICL is no threat to cricket, and should be completely official.

Please remember, disagreeing with the BCCI doesn't make someone a racist. Suresh, you couldn't have written that any better. BCCI should allow the ICL, there is nothing more to it. The other countries shouldn't have to join against the BCCI, that would be even worse for cricket than the ICL drama.

Thanks Suresh, for once I think you can write good articles too. Never thought I'd say that. But you do make a lot of sense here. BCCI should be sued for monopolizing the market. Don't know why ICL hasn't tried yet. Maybe they want something else from BCCI.

I fully agree with Suresh. Indian board is acting like monkey who eventually hurts itself. Its just greed and show off.

hear hear!

It it wasn't so serious it would be almost hilarious to see how the boards of Australia, New Zealand and England, the former "colonial masters" of the game, have tied themselves in knots to please the BCCI in the last couple of years. They have become facile impersonators who jump when the BCCI says to. As for the BCCI, as Pete Townsend once sang, "Meet the new boss....same as the old boss". Take the worst attributes of past eras and repeat the mistakes. It is clear that Lalit Modi and his cronies, not the ICC, run international cricket. Moral bankruptcy have rarely been so slickly packaged.

Brilliant article, Mr. Menon; the more often India speaks of principle, the louder grow the guffaws(and the more heated the consternation). Telling English players like KP and Freddie they must sign for two years is not on, it's not cricket, it's not even football! Who does Modi think he's talking to? His house servants? As I have said in a post recently, very soon India will be the most hated team in Cricket, and not for the behaviour of their superb team on or off the pitch, but because of the high and mighty attitude of the BCCI, never letting a single moment pass without comment if they can have their say. Discretion is the better part of valour, the BCCI will do well to remember that before the IPL is forced into an early retirement.

Suresh, it's the "free" market at work! Why are you complaining?

I wonder, as Avinash above does, why SAchin T didn't just say, "I'm going to play." Who'd be able to stop him? How would they penalize him?

This is a crap article. You cannot undermine a cricket boards authority in a country. The BCCI is doing the right thing by trying to crush the ICL. Imagine what would happen if there were such leagues in other countries run by other corporate houses. The ICL is also not with great intentions. I don't think these guys even make any profit. The IPL is here to stay and its going to generate big money. At the end of the day its India that is going to generate revenue in cricket. The BCCI is doing things within its right. You cannot have parallel Olympic associations in a country. Similarly you cannot have parallel Leagues like the ICL. Recognizing the ICL will only set a bad precedence.

Well said! I totally agree. It has gone beyond ridiculous and must stop.

Spot on. And with one exception, every comment so far has expressed full agreement with Menon. Given the huge #s who follow cricket worldwide through cricinfo.com I suggest a first step being cricinfo boycotting any game with the IPL imprimatur. Second, the rest of the Cricket boards need to meet collectively and stand up to BCCI bullying. Third, how does this nonsense stand up in a court of law? It violates elementary principles of business and ethics in every country in every sense. And finally shame on big names like Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Shastri and all the rest. Back in his day, Kapil had more guts than all of them put together - and he still does!!

A few BCCI cronies appear to be posting here too - all avoiding the actual substance of the argument that it's not a good thing that the BCCI is interfering in the running of cricket in other countries, even for petty things like curtain raiser games. The ICL does not just have retired players on their books - the list of New Zealand players that could be playing against India now, but are not allowed to by the NZ board and BCCI is distressingly long. Krishna - you do have it right - the IPL is ALL about making money. Cricket and total monopoly control of world cricket is just the model they use to achieve it. 20/20 was never going to do any good for cricket...

Excellent article. But the fault is not BCCI's alone. The other cricketing boards are at fault for putting up with this nonsense. Would the BCCi's money count for anything if the other boards refused to be walked all over? If Australia, England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka insist on picking ICL players, could the BCCI really refuse to play them? What are TV rights worth if you won't play anybody?

Well, atleast the Indian board is sticking to a stand. This is unlike the past where the Boards of England, and Australia had no problems taking back players who went on rebel South African tours and hence lending their support to the racism promoting rulers there.

The silence is deafening from Sachin. I guess he is a good mama's boy after all. He has the most to lose so it is no surprise he will bow to the demands of his masters. Strange but true. At least Inzamam had the guts to say enough is enough when his team was accused of cheating by a second rate Aussie umpire. Sachin is more worried about his sponsors and his advertising contracts than he is the game of cricket. I guess some people think they are bigger than the game. Inzamam thought the game was paramount, that is why he refused to have Pakistan labelled as cheats (again). What has Sachin done? Stayed silent and pretended the BCCI was absolutely right in their petty complaint. If you are an accessory to a crime you are just as bad as them.
Inzy stood up for Pakistan. Sachin just went back to his hotel room.

@Longmemory, where did these snipes at Tendulkar, etc. come from? Tendulkar is looking after himself like anybody would do. For all the talk about Kapil's guts, it seems now the ICL doesn't have money to pay players. So much for letting them earn a liveliehood. Those poor players might be left without an international career, nor a first-class one and no money in sight.

Oh and lots of us here will be struggling "locals" "angry" thats the jobs are going to the "immigrants" or "overseas". Wonder if those who are getting the jobs don't deserve a right to earn a living.

ICL ... they are supposed to develop Indian grass root level cicket
1) Do they have their own stadium
2) Do they have any training camps like MRF pace foundation
3) Do they have U16/U19/U25 teams ?

Without above how they are going to develop grass root level cricket ?

great blog suresh.....its highly unfortunate that BCCI has deprived many international teams of quality players just to show-case their dominance over world cricket...being a pakistani nothing hurts more then to see yousuf being banned out of the team and a novice like faisal iqbal replacing him...how can a team replace a player of yousuf's calibre?...certainly not pakistan with the current state of affairs....when will this era of mayhem and ignorance on part of BCCI end?

All those criticising Sachin for not taking a stand, take a deep breath and think twice. Can you even imagine the ruckus that would have been created had he taken a stand of some sort and played that match? That's the last thing the team would have wanted on a tour that's just starting and which they want to win badly.

That's why keeping a cool head, like Sachin does, is more important than scoring ego points. That said, I would love to see Sachin get more involved in the game's administration after his playing days.

I don't like the BCCI's attitude either, but it has nothing to do with fascism. Using this term in a slapdash way is disrespectful to the millions who were murdered by fascist regimes.

Mr Suresh this article is an eye opener no doubt..
Lets not probe into players..like Sachin..They are contracted by BCCI.which has zipped their mouth..
Anyways.. Mr Satish ..are u by chance funded by BCCI..?

india is an emerging cricketing force, with a fascinating mix of youth and experience.....it would be highly unfortunate if this golden era gets lost in the haze of BCCI's nincompoop behaviour and arrogance.

Well the BCCI uses an iron hand in its dealings. But i think that ICL is very danagerous to the cricket fabric in India. Hence whould be dealt sternly. ICL has got some quality players make no mistake but look at the way it is presented and promoted. They have made the sport a farce. And isn't the reason Behind ICL's existence a commercial one.
However the BCCI should not mess with the former players involved with ICL. that will not earn the goodwill of the public too.
ICL stink has to be ended with players returning back to their respective state sides & countries so that would be a fair deal for everyone involved including the BCCI

I think the forgotten species here is the cricketer. Will there be even a single match without a cricketer. These so called boards, IPL’s, ICL’s and even ICC. No one is gonna exist if simply no cricketer, my point is cricketers must join hands and fight for them, and their fellow cricketers.
What if one day, all cricketers stand up and say, we will not play a single ball, a single match and a single run until all matters are solved, let them stand up for the ICL players, after all, almost 90% of the ICL players are fellow professional of those who are so called legal cricketers now. Why can’t they stand up for their own brothers?
I would like to ask what is the So called international cricketers association, is it that most of the ICL players are members of the society, don’t they have to stand up for them, what is the purpose if it is only to negotiate money matters. Hope the cricketers will unite and make sense to these so called bodies and all else that came because of them.

let me ask a few questions.....
1)Who pays domestic cricketers and umpires in Ranji,Duleep trophies........BCCI or ICL?
2)Who pays for U15,U17,U19 teams to go abroad and play.....BCCI or ICL?
3)Who pays pension for retired cricketers....BCCI or ICL?
4)Who maintains grounds,pitches,pay for ground officials and staff......BCCI or ICL?
5)What if Ambani,Tata,Birla,ESPN,MIttal start their own leagues?
6)If ICL generates profit who keeps it?
7)Is there a need for regulating authority or not?
6)What if rich people from Australia,England,South Africa start their own leagues?
7)Who pays for medical bills of domestic cricketers....BCCI or ICL?

Ranjith: My father paid for all my needs when I was growing up. He doesn't own me because of that.

Suresh: It wasn't BCCI that created the huge fan-following which makes it the boss of world cricket. BCCI just got lucky. Instead of serving the fans who made BCCI so big BCCI officials are concerned only about protecting their own fiefdoms. Let them improve stadium facilities, for example. Even you Suresh are unlikely to have experienced the normal stands which make up the crowd in a cricket stadium. They're awful. People are treated like cattle.

What I am coming to is, unless BCCI changes its ways, there is only one way it is headed: to extinction. A better, more fan-friendly body will replace it. May not be ICL if ICL cannot offer a soltion for the customers of the game that BCCI so conveniently ignores.

Such is the rule of the world where a more efficiently run system always replaces an inefficient one, that BCCI will not be able to stop its successor from replacing it.

I am glad IPL has been shifted to South Africa. I would appreciate it if it took one more big jump and went into the South Atlantic. The people of India need to realize that the BCCI is a commercial enterprise hijacking cricket. The govt needs to step in (yeah right) and tell the BCCi to stop using the national flag and stop giving them free security and tax breaks. If Indian fans care about Indian cricket, they need to teach BCCI a lesson by boycotting IPL. Hit them where it hurts.