If cricket-board elections have traditionally been one of the justifications of the system, the other great source of legitimation has been the powerful idea that the structure of the domestic game represents territorial affiliation and loyalty. First-class teams are generally organized on a territorial principle on the theory that they harness sub-national loyalty. This is a perfectly good idea in theory, but it hasn't worked for the last quarter of a century. Nobody watches Ranji Trophy matches anymore. The rule that players must have residence qualifications for the team they represent is based on the assumption that Mumbaikars want to cheer their own, not some alien mercenary. Again, this would be an intellectually defensible rule if Mumbaikars turned out to support their own, but they don't and so it isn't.

A league based on team franchises and open to foreign players is a good idea in principle. I can see no disadvantage to a league where Ricky Ponting and Mashrafe Mortaza and Muttiah Muralitharan turn out for a Twenty-20 tournament called the Wipro Cup or a 50-over league sponsored by Tata. It would give Indian spectators a club league to follow in the same way as English spectators follow the careers of sides like Arsenal and Chelsea, packed with brilliant foreign recruits. Athletes like Ponting would force Indian players to lift their game. It's also a 'just' idea: it's unfair that fine players like Shane Bond and Mohammad Ashraful make a fraction of the money that Sehwag or Yuvraj have come to take for granted simply because they have fewer consuming countrymen watching them on television.

(The one danger that a league like this poses is this: if a pirate league manages to run away with Twenty20 cricket and the one day game, the revenues from limited overs cricket will no longer be available to subsidize the longer game. Zee's proposal shows no interest in either first class cricket or Test matches.)

Zee's plan to create a parallel tournament with teams made up of foreign players, young talent and Indian stars is part serious, part window-dressing. The serious part of the plan is the proposal to create team franchises after the pattern of baseball and football, owned (presumably) by business people. This is the first-class cricket team as a squad of 'mercenaries' hired for their skills, in place of the first-class side as regional champions chosen from the available sons of the soil. The big move here is the plan to have players from outside India which symbolically makes a break with the idea of a league organized on territorial principles.

The idea that more than half the players in each team will be young talent or that these franchises will be nurseries of Indian talent is a PR move. Clubs trying to build themselves into brands, to attract a fan following, to merchandize their stars will hire the best players they can, though they'll probably sign enough players from the region in which they're based to encourage a sense of solidarity and assuage local feeling.

Can a bid like Zee's work if the BCCI sets its face against it? It's unlikely that the BCCI will tolerate a challenge to its monopoly, so we should assume that Zee's version of Packer's circus will begin life as an insurgent, unofficial league. Local players who sign up will face the threat of excommunication by the BCCI, which would mean forfeiting any chance of representing India in tests or ODIs. Players from other Test-playing countries who sign up with Zee will find the BCCI using its very considerable leverage in the ICC to get their parent boards to whip them into line. At this point, the first line of defence for contracted players would be an appeal to the courts in India and elsewhere in defence of their right to livelihood.

If these players failed to satisfy the courts that the action of the official boards was an unreasonable restraint on trade, the circus's ability to attract talent would depend on two things. First, the amount of money players are offered and the number of years they're offered contracts for. Any player signing up will be looking for years of financial security. Zee's talk about prize money worth a million dollars will be attractive, but the cricketers who sign up for the six teams that will be the kernel of this parallel league will be looking less at prize money than guaranteed salaries.

	'More important than the money will be Zee's ability to deliver two or three major contemporary Indian players, not has-beens like Vinod Kambli or Ajay Jadeja or players at the margins of the international team like Murali Karthik or Ramesh Powar' © AFP

But even more important than the money will be Zee's ability to deliver two or three major contemporary Indian players, not has-beens like Vinod Kambli or Ajay Jadeja or players at the margins of the international team like Murali Karthik or Ramesh Powar. Zee needs a couple of Indian giants whose presence will make the gamble feel like a bona fide business venture. We can rule out Dravid: as India's captain, he has nothing to gain from being part of an insurrection. And all other things being equal, I can't see Tendulkar, Kumble, Ganguly and Sehwag abandoning (even temporarily, assuming that Zee and the BCCI settle the dispute as Packer eventually did) the glory of the international game for Subhash Chandra's gold.

But should other things not remain equal, then the Zee venture has an outside chance of getting off the ground. This is where the current politics of Indian cricket opens a window of opportunity for Chandra: were the selectors to take their cue from the BCCI and 'rest' senior players (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Sehwag, Kumble and Laxman or any combination of these) from the tour of Bangladesh, these veterans would read their exclusion as a public humiliation by a vindictive, buck-passing board. In that event, it's just possible that a risk-taker like Ganguly might unfurl the standard of revolt and others like Sehwag and (who knows) even the great Tendulkar might rally to the cause.

Tendulkar doesn't need Zee's money, but exclusion from the Bangladesh tour as punishment for not giving his all in the World Cup will be a slight that touches his honour. If the former coach and the present captain, if the journalists, administrators, selectors, and fans who form Indian cricket's new and vocal lobby for youth have their way, this coming season could go down in Indian cricket history as an epochal year: the Summer of Seven.

This post is adapted from an article that appeared in the Telegraph, Kolkata, which can be read here.

One ray of hope is that most of the seniors (Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman, Kumble) have at best another couple of years of international cricket left. If Chandra guarantees even 2-3 of them a contract for next 4-5 years, then there is a chance that they will defect and this league might take off.

I agree with you. It is high time a league like that is started in India. This international cricket is really getting boring. Yes, there is a danger that a commercial league may abandon Test cricket totally, but even there I am hopeful. They can't just play odi's all through the year, so they may keep Test cricket alive for variety's sake.

the idea of a league will be good for international cricket. if people like bond, tikolo and mortaja can have a chance to earn big playing league cricket in india, then thats good news for the developing cricket markets of the world. the bcci should have thought of this move on its own, now that chandra has come up with it, lets see how the grand powers that be react to it.

One thing you've forgotten to mention- international cricket is played a lot more than international soccer. And surely you'll agree that national teams can't draft "mercenaries" who play in other countries, during different seasons and in different conditions. So if my country, Australia, wishes to select, say, Stuart MacGill while he's been playing for Mumbai instead of New South Wales, then that's very tricky because he hasn't been playing for an Australian team. In fact, isn't there a bit of overlap between the Australian and Indian seasons? So it's very difficult.

But you're right in a way- private enterprise needs to be running cricket in order to keep the inovations coming. Kerry Packer proved that.

The sum of it is very simple:

The BCCI has failed. It has been allowed to fail because there is no competitive presence to force it to do better. This vacuum invites legitimate initiatives that try and capture the existing opportunities. With any luck, Zee may represent the first sniff of competition BCCI has faced. Let's encourage this initiative. If not Zee, maybe someone else will provide an alternative to what BCCI dishes out. That will be the only systematic way to improve BCCI's performance.

On an unrelated note, I read with disappointment your reference to Ganguly as a risk-taker and Tendulkar's honour. It seemed deferential and complementary. I find it hard to think of any other individuals in Indian cricket who more put individual before team than them. Let's be done with them. Or be done with Indian cricket.

Agree with most of what you write. Chandra has to reveal more of his plan (if any) to convince others that it might take off. As of now it seems more of a wild idea by a risk taker. The timing is also just right.

There is one point that I find difficult to agree with. That is the last point about Tendulkar and his pride. Everyone who is anyone in cricketing circles or media is very careful when it comes to writing about Tendulkar. Where was this pride in the last two years when his peroformance was below par by very average standards? Or where is the pride when he repeatedly fails at the big stage?

Pride is all bull... It is a media creation, a part of his carefully cultivated image. Tendulkar is a commercial creature like the rest of them / us. He will go where the commercial interests take him. If it pays to abandon the good-boy image and go rebel in the long run, he will.

marcus, frequency of "international" cricket matches will obviously have to go down. Like soccer, it will become friendly matches played when it is off-season for club cricket. Apart from a quadrennial world cup, that is.

Mukul, here is another idea for stars to migrate to this league. What if someone drafts a statement for Tendulkar, Dravid et al highlighting the virtues of free market economy and how monopolistic regime of national boards is not good for either future players or for the game itself? So these guys can defect not as mercenaries but as champions of free market economy. I am sure capitalism has enough believers atleast among the urban youth in India (cricket's main target market) for people to appreciate such a stand. Or am I just dreaming? :-)

anyway, here are my posts where I had argued for such a league even before Zee made its announcement: http://aralikatte.blogspot.com/search/label/Cricket

Mukul,

This reminds me of a piece you had written long back on the need for a club format in cricket.

Conceptually, I don't see anything wrong with ICL. Neither do I see any hitch in Zee roping in marketable talent. If they have to sacrifice big names from Indian cricket, they can very well rope in recently retired or out of favour big names from other countries. I don't think signing up players of the likes of Inzamam from Pak, Henry Olonga and many others from Zimbabwe, Greg Blewett from Australia etc. should be difficult for Zee.

The big question though, will be twofold. First, Zee's ability to produce entertaining sports software. Till now, their stint with cricket broadcasting has been pretty mediocre from the viewer's standpoint. They'll have to improve many times over in order to bring on considerable viewer interest into the event. Second would be the extent of Chandra's persistance and interest level in the face of BCCI opposition, which looks pretty inevitable by now. Packer was dour, persistant and focussed. Though a maverick, he was a sports broadcaster at heart. Chandra's allegiance to cricket has only one motivation - money. There lies the big difference.

Cricket by its very nature is a different proposition to football. Firstly, an ODI takes near enough 8 hours to complete and a TEST takes five days. The English county matches are 4 days in length. So trying to squeeze in a lot of 'overseas' players is probably not the answer. However, drafting in the odd international would be possible (particularly from countries without a strong league structure) and these can only enhance the Indian leagues in the long run.

By the way I note that India are to play SA in Ireland, when will the powers that be in India understand that playing there meaningless matches adds up to nothing. You need to be playing TEST matches and reduce the number of ODIs to keep the best players fresh and fit for TEST matches.

As nation we are a bunch of hypocrites. There is so much cry about players not doing well because of endorsements and at the same time we start a private league to make more money and bring in more sponsors. Subash Chandra says the league will improve the game at the grass root level? How exactly is the new league going to help ?Privatizing the league is a good idea and will always increase competition, but the underlying factor to privatizing anything will always remain the same - MONEY!!!. Forget cricket, the only way to improve the standard of every single sport in the country is to setup something similar to the American NCAA. An organization that can oversee all College/University level athletics and streamline the talent in every sport. This will make the college game more competitive, which in turn will improve the game at the high school level. Having under 15 and under 19 teams is not the key to find talent. There should be a proper drafting process to the Ranji teams, which will set a minimum age forcing young cricketers to go through college. A third of the $320 million being spent on the new league, would be enough to setup a Indian NCAA.

The reason India failed to make the Super 8 is not because of endorsements, bad coaching, senior players or poor captaincy, it's because the team collectively failed against a charged up Bangladesh, had India scored another 25 runs we probably would not be here arguing on how to improve the game. Upsets happen in sports, France got knocked out of the FIFA world cup as defending champs only to reach the final again in 4 years on the back of a player who came out of retirement. We on the other end have already written the obituary of one of the greatest players of our generation and very easily blame his lack of form on endorsements. Sportsmen equivalent of Tendulkar's calibre in every other sport make a lot more than he does, so its high time we stop blaming every poor performance on the money players make. They need to be accountable for their performance, but do not deserve repeated public humiliation after every loss. Can anyone name one player who can actually replace Tendulkar based on form and talent? We havent seen a single talent like him in the last 18 years, maybe he is past his prime but he still deserves a place on side purely on the merit of being one of the top 5 batsmen in the country.
Dropping him for the Bangladesh tour will certainly lead to a rash chain of events, but a diehard Indian fan somewhere in me still hopes he pulls off a Zidane in 2011.

To Vikas : Amen brother !!!

Sameer said it right abt Mr Zee and Mr Packer diff. But at least as a spectator we should be able to see some good ckt from Indian players. Spending 200$ for WC , taking days off from work and see your team get out of the WC on the eve of first game itself is very disturbing.

Dear Mr. Kesavan,
Mumbai is not a state, perhaps you meant Maharashtra (a large and industrialized state on India's western coast).
Please check your facts before posting!
regards,
Bhushan.

@Jaswinder : What you say is very utopian in nature. A purist would always prefer cricket matches played over long durations. But if seen from a very realistic standpoint, the purist ends up becoming a minority with respect to his weight in the affairs of the game today. What rules the roost today is the big bucks and the media.

And going by the way things are changing, test cricket may soon be relegated to ceremonial status. We talk of Zee concentrating on only shorter versions of the game in its ICL. But what different is the ICC doing? Compare how many rookie teams have been given ODI exposure and how many got to play tests. If they have no qualms about diluting their flagship tournament with minnows like Scotland, Canada, Ireland etc. (I'm not opposing this...I strongly believe this needs to be done to increase the popularity of the sport), I don't see any reason why they shouldn't allow the same Scotland, Ireland and Canada to play maybe 5 tests each against different opponents. But then, the ICC sees where the moolah is coming from and they too are concentrating just on that.

@ Deepak : What you said about Sachin is absoltely correct. I feel he deserves much more respect than what he's getting right now. Not just Sachin, I'd say every player should be spared the humiliation. Would you guys do it to your family members if they failed in an exam? We don't, do we? Instead, we're great examples of reassuring kin when something like that happens.

Infact, we Indians (I usually don't generalise, but the way I'm seeing things happening over the past few weeks, I feel this one is a judicious generalisation of the majority)tend to find scapegoats and once we find one, we stop looking beyond it. I neither agree or disagree with the allegations against senior players since I haven't heard the other side of the story at all. But one thing I can say for sure is that the decay in Indian cricket is much deeper than just that. The BCCI structure, the domestic & junior cricket setups, the selection policy, the coaching approach etc. are other issues that need to be looked into. Other than placing the blame firmly on the players for the WC debacle, and chastising them in the form of endorsement cuts (that's imbecile), notices, scrapping of the contract system etc., what else came from the much hyped BCCI meet? I remember laughing my guts out to the news that said that the zonal selection policy will be scrapped. The news by itself wasn't funny - the sidenote was. It said that new selectors would be on board by the end of 2008. Now what elaborate selection process is going to take 20 months?

BTW...Deepak's point about having a body like the NCAA setup in India is not practical as things stand now, despite being quite well intentioned. The current roster of sports bodies in India is more than enough, provided they work functionally. Adding a new one would just create a thematic clone of whatever's already present.

Well said Deepak. 25 runs more against Bangladesh would have changed the whole scenario! Such is the nature of the game. On the other hand, look at Sanath Jayasuriya; the hero of 96, the villain of 99, the under performer of 03, is back again and is sure to take his side to the semis single-handedly. There is no reason why Tendulkar can't repeat his 96 form or his 03 form. Remember, after 99 world cup many had said that Tendulkar had gone past his prime! Now they are saying that he can not repeat his 03 performance again. Remember how Shane Warne came back? Remember how Lara bettered his 375 with a 400? Form is temporary and class is permanent. Having said all these, if someone is not performing and IF SOME ELSE OUTSIDE THE TEAM WHO IS PERFORMING BETTER, the first person deserves to be dropped. But I don't think this is the case here!

Mohan

I for one think that it would be a great shame to lose international cricket. One of the great advantages (to my mind) of cricket is that it's only one of two team sports that's played between countries (Rugby Union being the other). It would be a great shame if the great historical rivalries, like the Ashes, would turn to dust. Let's not forget the Frank Worral Trophy or the India-Pakistan games either. If cricket does become privatised (and like I said, that does have definite advantages) then I don't see why you have to sacrifice international games for it.

Marcus, I can certainly understand that view and don't necessarily disagree. However, cricket as it is being played today is highly commercialised. When we have a show that is being staged for money, I would rather that it is played between commercial clubs rather than these multinational companies taking advantage of people's nationalist sentiments for their benefit.

There are also many other disadvantages of the present structure. Fact that India accounts for 80% of the market means that it is Indian money that is sustaining the game all over the world. That is, money is going out of Indian economy to all these various boards and ICC. I see no reason why that should happen. If we have a club league based in India, we can still have players from all over the world playing, but atleast let the money remain in India.

I agree with Deepak:
Sachin deserves a lot more respect from the so called fans...
And yeah!! I am with you deepak... Lets hope He pulls off a Zidane in 2011 World Cup... There are very few players world over in any sport who can be spoken of in the same breath as Zidane but Sachin is definitely one of them....
PS: A head butt to all the ungrateful Indian fans & media would be wonderful...
Amen!!

It is indeed ironic that the finest sportsman India has produced – finest not only in terms of abilty and achievement but also in terms of on field and off field behaviour – has to face a Board of Enquiry conducted by men who have manipulation in their bloodstream to justify his action. Has anyone wondered how Tendulkar and Ganguly, who were considered role models for the youth of this country by John Wright, have become the villains over 22 months – that too on the say so of a man who made his brother bowl underarm to prevent the opponents from winning ?

How is it the wise men of the BCCI and Rajan Bala and his ilk do not think the coach did not breach any contract when he passed on confidential information on selection and continuously gave them juicy bits of insinuations couched as baring the truth about people who had no chance of defending themselves? Has anyone in the august body called BCCI or our media ever thought of raising this issue? Is it because they wanted their moments of glory even if it meant bordering on character assassination? The crafty Aussie was a past master in the art of 'suppressio veri and suggestio falsi to cover up his shortcomings and our "investigative journalists" could not help falling for it. Oh God, Why did Ganguly not listen to Steve Waugh before recommending Chappell?

Is it not characteristic of us that we are only capping endorsements like the licence raj of socialist days when we thought we could control markets by fiat. If the players do no do well the endorsements will automatically vanish without any need for Pawar and his band of merry men having to shove their oar in. The other important recommendation of our wise men was to limit the number of international playing days. Should we not do that first to save our crown jewels from being prematurely destroyed? Is too much cricket also not a reason for the Caribbean fiasco?

What did the wild Aussie achieve in 22 months – he gave you a "fantastic plan" for the future [shades of Yojana Bhavan?] and successfully destroyed the confidence of treasures such as Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag. Ganguly with a stronger mind was bloodied but unbowed.

It is pathetic to see our TV Channels sucking up to the Rameez Rajas, Richard Hadlees, Ian Chappells and Brett Lees delivering homilies on our icons. For God's sake leave them alone if you cannot support them in this hour of need .Please be an atypical Indian for a change – reach out to those who are down and out and help them get up.

The reason why the Subhash Chandra's ICL will have tough time in keeping the league going successfully is the infrastructure and the salaries of the cricketers. ICL has to get permission from BCCI and its state associations for staging matches in the grounds/stadiums of associations. If they do not allow it, he will have difficulty in getting good quality cricket grounds. Playing matches in college grounds or in Sports Authority of India's stadiums will not help the cause. Also first class cricketers in India are getting very good match fees and he has to spend a lot of money for match fees and contracts alone as he has to offer more than what they are getting. If he brings in foreign players' contracts, it will be more. So his Rs.100 crore capital might not be enough to run the show. ICL has to marketed very agressively an to get a lot of sponsors and needs a lot of crickets with international repute. Will Subhash Chandra have the patience for a gruelling marathon, remains to be seen.