Ranatunga’s salvo could find takers

Cricketana

Over the past tumultuous week, smug administrators in the Board of Control for Cricket in India would have realised to their chagrin that what they believed was terra firma below their feet was rapidly turning into shifting sands.

Delirious over the conduct of the Indian Premier League, and the obeisance paid to it by various other cricket boards for a share of the lucre, the BCCI could hardly have anticipated such a startling start to the new season. With 13 Bangladesh cricketers defecting to the Indian Cricket League, and a few days later, the Sri Lankan cricket board lifting the ban on its ICL players to participate in domestic cricket, the Pandora’s Box has been opened.

Evident from the current developments is that there is growing heartburn and unhappiness among the players’ fraternity. It would be simplistic to be dismissive of the Bangladeshi players, who obviously don’t command so much star value. But this could be symptomatic of a sentiment that traverses other countries as well.

More significantly, perhaps, is that other important administrations are now seeing red too over the hegemony that the BCCI wants to establish. The decision of the Sri Lanka Cricket to allow its ICL players to play domestic cricket is an open affront to the BCCI. True, the Lankan players still cannot play for the country, but Arjuna Ranatunga has fired a salvo that could gather momentum in the days to come. What is to stop other full-member countries of the ICC to follow suit?

Problem is that BCCI has chosen to be exclusive and exploitative rather than inclusive and supportive. That is always likely to alienate rather than win over more playersboards in the long run. For instance, Bangladesh has yet to be invited to play a Test series in India, and the Sri Lankan board is smarting because its interests have been sidelined. Likewise, sentiment in Pakistan, which has had to forego the Champions Trophy, is boiling over.

The fact is, the game has grown exponentially, especially after the advent of private enterprise like the ICL in the equation has opened up more option and opportunities. There are more players seeking livelihood, from whichever quarter, and cricket boards willing to bend that much and no further.

I reckon there is more high drama to follow. Much as the mandarins in the BCCI would like to believe they have all contingencies covered and they call all the shots, the fact remains that discontent over its functioning — as well as the namby-pamby approach of the ICC — is simmering across the cricket world.

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To welcome the Australians for what promises to be a rollicking series, I picked on this anecdote from Richard Hadlee’s book, Caught Out, to understand the Aussie ethos.
The English team which toured Australia in the 1950s had in its midst the great Alec Bedser (who captured 236 Test wickets) and batsman Jack Crapp (who played seven Tests and averaged 29). Both were checking into a Sydney Hotel and were greeted politely by the receptionist.

“Bed sir?”’ he asked. “No Crapp,” replied Jack.

“Oh!’’ said the receptionist, “that’s two doors down the hallway on the left, sir.”’
Hadlee writes that the receptionist perhaps did not know his cricket. I find that hard to believe. I believe he was having old-fashioned Aussie fun.