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Over the top

The organisers of the BCCI’s Indian Premier League just don’t seem to get it. That there is no way the world’s largest and most complex election exercise will not get priority over a splurge of Twenty20 entertainment — which as Home Minister P. Chidambaram has pointed out is “a shrewd combination of sport and business” with a dash of politics sought to be thrown in. In fact, it is astonishing that Lalit Modi & Co. missed what every n ewspaper-reading schoolboy and schoolgirl was expected to know, namely that the 15th general election would be held in April-May 2009 and that it would need protection from all the paramilitary and police forces the central and State governments could muster for the Election Commission of India. For several months, especially after the United Progressive Alliance government contrived to survive a confidence vote on July 22, 2008, it was known that the timing of the vital democratic exercise would clash with the preordained IPL schedule (April 10-May 24). From the day Mr. Chidambaram expressed his reservations about security arrangements for the IPL in view of the clash of dates, it was clear that the authorities would be hard put to meet the bang-bang game’s demands. It is understandable that the Board of Control for Cricket in India wants to protect the commercial interests of the IPL, its franchisees, sponsors, television rights holder, and players. But it has got its priorities all wrong.

From the standpoint of the Twenty20 game, the decision to outsource the tournament, even as schedules were being repeatedly revised, has come as a bitter disappointment — publicly shared by the great Sachin Tendulkar — to millions of fans. The high-and-mighty stand taken by the IPL tzar, Mr. Modi, that there could be no question of a truncated competition ensured that the only way out was over the top — unless State governments could be lured into taking morally unacceptable risks. That the Bharatiya Janata Party has brought in a political twist to score points on the IPL is condemnable, given the genuine security concerns that surfaced post-Mumbai and especially after the Sri Lankan cricketers were attacked by terrorists in Lahore. By deciding to take the League out of India, the BCCI has gone back to the 1980s and 1990s when security concerns and political opposition posed problems for India-Pakistan cricket, and offshore cricket was staged in the Gulf and even in faraway Canada. Marketed solely as television spectacle, sport becomes soulless. The first edition of the IPL was a resounding success. Offshoring the second edition will send out the message that all that matters is prime time television coverage to swell the IPL’s coffers. For long the BCCI has flexed its financial muscle to have its way in international cricket. This time, by bowing meekly to the hyper-commercialism of the IPL, it is in the process of selling the interests of millions of fans down the Mithi.

A sentence in the first paragraph of "Over the top" (Editorial, March 25, 2009) was "From the day Mr. Chidambaram expressed his reservations about security arrangements for the IPL in view of the clash of dates, it was clear that the authorities would be hard put to meet the bang-bang game's demands." The correct idiom is "hard put to it to .".

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