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Loading ...Could not agree more with your sentiment. The BCCI only seems to have the present in mind with no thought for the future of the game. The ICC are slaves to the whim of Lalit Modi and they can do little to change the tide…
Something rotten at the core
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-November Add your comment below
India’s cricket team is heir apparent to Australia’s world champion crown and its board is the richest and most powerful in the world. Over the past week Yuvraj Singh has scored two memorable hundreds, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India has attempted to shift the dates of the first Test match to accommodate a newly created money-spinning Twenty20 competition – the Champions League. The two sides of Indian cricket are captured in these events: sublime stroke-play, and a behemoth greedy for more cash.
The ECB rejected calls for changes to the Test dates, but even before this tour got under way England’s itinerary has been suspect. Most of the ODI’s are being played in provincial industrial cities like Rajkot or Indore – and not in the premier cricket grounds of Calcutta or Chennai.
Beside the fact that I would rather see England play in some of the world’s great stadiums – the rotation policy has left the tour itinerary in a constant state of limbo. The game originally planned for Jamshedpur was moved to Bangalore because the stands were unsafe and Guwahati in Assam is a potential war-zone. Just a couple of weeks ago 18 bombs planted by separatists in the city killed 64 people and injured over 300. Around ten thousand people have died in the regions political struggles over the past three decades.
The BCCI’s ticketing policy also leaves much to be desired. Despite its gleaming new website it does not sell tickets online, only locally around the respective stadiums. I am relying on friends in Cuttack and Delhi to get me into the ground, while the Barmy Army will not officially comment on the problems it has had in gaining a quota of tickets for the Test series lest it anger the BCCI in public – putting their quota in jeopardy.
For every great performance by India there is an example of the greed and bloody-mindedness of the BCCI. I would much rather be writing about Yuvraj.
Alex Try is in India blogging England’s tour for The Corridor
Tags: barmy-army, BCCI, england-in-india, tickets |
12 Responses to “Something rotten at the core”
November 20th, 2008 at 12.58 pm
November 21st, 2008 at 12.15 am
Whats worse is they don’t seem to be accountable to anybody!!
November 21st, 2008 at 12.06 pm
The BCCI’s actions are reprehensible and draconian. Eventually, they will cause the implosion of the ICC. But there are a few things in this post that are irksome.
Ticketing? The prices and seats available for the Ashes in 2005 were unjustifiable, and the same can be said for the upcoming 2009 series.
An obsession with 20/20? One word: Stanford. An English team traipses over to the Caribbean with big, fat texan dollars in their eyes and that’s okay, but when India does the same, it’s being money-hungry. Hm. Shifting dates around for ICL is the worst of all sins, but plans to set up another 20/20 competition in what has been decried as an already overfull calendar is nothing but lily-white virtue. Hm.
Yes. India is being a bully, but there are a lot of other countries and their boards that seem very eager to follow the example.
November 21st, 2008 at 10.05 pm
..and Gawahati is a war zone ? Can you check when was the last time people due to bombing in Guwahati. if Guwahati is a war zone then London is in Iraq
November 22nd, 2008 at 8.37 am
No you would much rather be whining about the BCCI even more than you are right now.You wanted to have a ‘white’ christmas.Hence the 2 test series.2ndly,India is a big country with many states.Those stadiums need to get their share of games.1 game in 5 years isn’t good enough.These areas should get games for the overall development of cricket in india.It’s still not happened completely.Most of the north & north-east esp. aren’t interested.3rdly,these stadiums that have come up-nagpur,indore,hyderabad etc etc. are fantastic.All new stadiums in India are.
Might I add the existing one’s have improved beyond recognition & are better than most ,if not all british grounds.4rthly,Guwahati is not a ‘potential war-zone’.LOL.
5.Calcutta is not a great ground to watch a game.Spectator comfort is not great & people prone to throwing stuff.You’re stuck in a time warp.Lastly,The BCCI attempting to shift the dates of the 1rst test is common sense.It’s not happening now.Your daft board disagreed.That means no MS Dhoni captaining the Superkings in the Finals.
Well written moderately propogandic post.Some naive westerner might even believe your rubbish & go to bed frustrated at this satan incarnate Lalit Modi(Who every1 in the BCCI hates) & the hell-raising BCCI.
Here’s what would have been interesting-7-0 or 6-1??
November 22nd, 2008 at 9.03 am
guwhati is a potential war zone??? hmmmmmmmmm
amusing i think u need to check your facts
November 22nd, 2008 at 5.47 pm
I have to say that this article smacks of condescension, and is a tad hypocritical. As if the ECB’s not in it for the moolah. Stanford Cup, anybody? The BCCI are no saints, least of all Lalit Modi, but a good look in the mirror would reveal that cricket’s more pressing issues are a global concern and not one directly related to the growing stature of India in world cricket.
And seriously, Guwahati a potential war zone? If you’re going to make the effort to publish such polemic drivel, at least make sure you get your facts right. Hugely disappointing, this.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1.36 am
Sathnam Mann
About the BCCI’s proposed date shift, they should never have scheduled the Test and the Champion’s League final so close together in the first place. How many spectators do you think scheduled their trips to India, or their time off work, around the dates of the First Test as it was originally scheduled? I think that both boards have a responsibility to the fans of both teams, and if that means Dhoni having to rush back to the Test venue the day after the final, so be it. Plenty of Victorian and Tasmanian players had to rush to the MCG the day after the Australia vs. CA XI T20 match, and they got through it just fine. And that’s assuming the Super Kings make it to the finals in the first place! All in all, I think the ECB made the correct decision in keeping the fixtures the way they are.
November 24th, 2008 at 2.58 am
What’s this stuff about the schedule of the first test.The change would have been a day.Will England make it to the fifth day?
Exactly.
Thats why its bloody-minded of the ECB.Didn’t expect anything else from that lot of fools.They have all the characteristics of a donkey except that of being hard-working.
Guwahati is a war zone now,I see.Terrorist attacks can happen anywhere.Don’t forget -Anywhere.
November 24th, 2008 at 11.22 am
Dont think anyone is defending the ECB – look what the Stanford has done for England – broken the excellent form they had at the back end of our season, destroyed team morale – look at the faces of the players – they would rather be anywhere than playing circket. Did they ECB think things would just carry on?
The issue is a simple one – if the ICC has no control or say in what the BCCI does (or the ECB) then what is the point of the ICC?
November 24th, 2008 at 6.10 pm
I’m not too bothered about the rotation policy. India is a large country and if the matches were just played in the major cities people in the smaller cities would always miss out. However, the ticket selling policy is atrocious. Why can’t they sell advance tickets?! Over the internet, or from the outlets that sell stuff like cinema tickets. I live in Pune, and hope to see a couple of days of the Mumbai test. To do this I have to travel to Mumbai, stay with a friend, get to the stadium early in the morning, and then hope I can get a ticket – whether officially or from a tout. I’m relying on England not being such a big draw, and tests being less popular then ODIs to get a ticket. I have no idea what is a good location in the stadium either – there is precious little official information.
November 24th, 2008 at 11.21 pm
TG, that’s a pretty pathetic excuse for the way England are playing now. They could have won in Antigua, but they played atrociously- their fault. They could be winning in India- but India at the moment is just too good. Even if they’d won in Antigua, do you still think they’d beat India in India, given that they’d already been beaten handily by New Zealand in England?
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