Tag: Sourav Ganguly AT BCCI Helm

Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation a Meaningless Gabfest?

By Sanjoy Narayan

Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation a meaningless gabfest?

The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which organized a foreign ministers’ summit in Goa last week, like to believe that the organization whose prominent members include China, Russia, and India, is a sort of parallel United Nations (UN) but for a region that straddles Eurasia. Last week the SCO held its foreign ministers’ summit in the laidback erstwhile hippie resort (now a target tourist destination for almost everybody) of Goa in India. But although the assemblage of foreign ministers was impressive and could potentially generate news—after all, there were emissaries from China, Russia, Pakistan, and India, all countries that have at least some beef with each other over some issue or the other—to misquote T.S. Eliot, the two-day meeting ended not with a bang but a whimper.

Of course, there was enough for the news-starved Indian media to work themselves up into a frenzy about the “body language” between the Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart,  Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (they didn’t shake hands when they met at the summit); or the attempts by China and Russia to take the upper hand at the meeting and its sessions (Really?!!); and how India unenviably had to balance its stance even as its relations with China have soured and the latter has grown visibly closer to Russia with which India’s ties, particularly trade-related ones are stronger (what was that again? The friend of my enemy is my…?).

In the end, nothing of consequence really happened. Journalists make a huge deal during such summits of what they call meetings or interactions on the “sidelines”, a reference to dialogues or unscheduled discussions that take place outside of the official agenda. So, the media, in the absence of anything of consequence to report, made a big deal about how the Indian foreign minister met his Russian and Chinese counterparts on the sidelines of the Goa summit. And what happened? You are right. Nothing.

After his meeting with the Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, Jaishankar tweeted profoundly: “Focus remains on resolving outstanding issues and ensuring peace and tranquility in the border areas.” Wow! What a breakthrough! And, after his meeting with the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, Jaishankar said the two had done a “comprehensive review of bilateral, global and multilateral cooperation”. How enlightening!

Oh, and there was the usual proforma tirade between India and Pakistan, both accusing each other of heinousness of varying degrees. For the record, Jaishankar said Bhutto Zardari was a “promoter, justifier and a spokesperson” of the terror industry. Zardari, at a press conference in Islamabad after the summit said Jaishankar’s comments were a “joke”. He said: “This country knows me, have I once even in my political history accidentally sat down with a terrorist?” Bhutto Zardari said. “They don’t see that even in our country we  (his party, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party) perform a role in the first ranks against appeasing terrorists,” he added.

So, what was it that we were saying about the SCO? For China and Russia, it is an anti-West platform. For smaller nations such as the Central Asian states, and Mongolia, Armenia, and Turkey, it offers an organization to belong to—an organization that is led by the heft of larger nations such as China, Russia, and India. However, the significance of SCO for India is not really clear. India has been tightrope walking in regard to its relations with Russia and China. At the SCO, it is a sort of big fish but one that is quite confoundingly odd. Its border dispute with China continues to brew; its stance on Russia and the war in Ukraine is conditioned heavily by the dependence on trade with Russia (from whom India buys large supplies of oil and weapons); and it really gets no support, from either China or Russia, on the threats of terrorism via Pakistan that continue to wreak havoc in its territory. Sadly, India’s is a bit of a pitiable state in the SCO.

Will India get a bigger bite of Apple?

Apple, the iconic maker of iPhones and iEverything, has an interesting relationship with China. In fact, as the Financial Times observed recently in an article by a portfolio manager, Apple may be more Chinese than American. Here’s why?

China is where (still) Apple gets most of its products made. In 2016, Apple is believed to have signed a pact to invest US$275 billion in China. That is a huge investment for a single company to commit to one country. Besides, almost 20% of Apple’s revenues come from China (just for comparison, India accounts for around a per cent of the US corporation’s revenues, which were around US$400 billion in 2022). Last year, operating profits for Apple from Greater China (the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) accounted for US$31.2 billion (its total operating profits that year were US$ 113.96 billion).

Apple also bends over backwards to comply with China and its all-powerful Communist Party. It turns over data accrued from consumers of its products; it blocks apps that irk the Chinese authorities; and it restricts file sharing in the region.

In short, Apple does everything to protect its business relationship, which not long ago, CEO Tim Cook described as “symbiotic”. As much as 46% of Apple’s suppliers are based in mainland China and it is estimated that for some products as much as 95% of the volume is manufactured in China.

However, things could change. Of late, China has been cracking down on foreign companies with more surveillance as well as controls. Besides, labour and manufacturing costs in China have been going up. In the long run, it is sensible for Apple to think of alternative manufacturing strategies. It has been eyeing opportunities in other countries, including India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Ireland. IPhone manufacture has been increasing in India where three of Apple’s suppliers have facilities, all of them in south India. Apple has been shifting production away from China after the country’s strict COVID-related restrictions disrupted the manufacturing of many of its products, including the iPhone.

So how big a slice of the Apple pie will India get. As of now, India accounts for just 5-7% of the total number of iPhones manufactured by Apple; but the US giant wants to take that level up to 25%. So, soon India could get a bigger bite of Apple.

The godfather of AI fears for humanity

Geoffrey Hinton, 75, is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning. He is often referred to as the “Godfather of Deep Learning” due to his significant contributions to the development and advancement of neural networks. Recently, Hinton quit Google where he was the main architect of the firm’s research and development in AI and Machine Learning.

Hinton said he left his position at Google to speak out about the “dangers” of the technology he helped to develop. Hinton fears that the tech industry’s drive to develop AI products could result in dangerous consequences—from misinformation to job loss, and even a threat to humanity. In particular, Hinton felt that the in future AI systems could learn unexpected behavior from gleaning vast amounts of data and that such behavior could put at risk humanity.

Hinton isn’t the only voice against the spread and rise of AI systems. Recently, the billionaire and Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, had stated in an interview that “AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production, in the sense that it is, it has the potential–however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial–it has the potential of civilization destruction.” And Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli public intellectual, historian and professor, has observed that AI may have “hacked the operating system of human civilization”.

The risks that AI could pose have come to the attention of governments. Last week,  Big Tech company bosses were called to the White House andtold that they need to protect the public from the dangers of AI. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman were reminded of their “moral” duty to protect society.

The good news is that many of Big Tech’s CEOs and executives are of the same opinion and some of the latest advances in AI and Machine Learning are being made with caution and regulation.

It is official: Sourav Ganguly doesn’t know much

Spinelessness is a recurring syndrome among people who benefit from patronage. Last week, we witnessed how a leading Indian athlete (now a Member of Parliament where she was nominated by the ruling regime) criticized the protests by Indian wrestlers and many others against charges of sexual harassment and more levelled at the powerful boss of India’s wrestling federation, Brij Bhushan. Now, it is the turn of Sourav Ganguly, former Indian cricket captain and currently chairman of the ICC Men’s Cricket Committee.

Known less for his intellect than his talent as a cricketer, Ganguly was quoted last week as saying that he did not know much about the ongoing protest of the wrestlers but hoped that the issue will be resolved soon. Ganguly either cannot read (no shame in that: many people cannot) or he is scared of coming out with a stronger statement in favour of his peers in the world of Indian sport. Most likely it is the latter.

The Indian news agency Press Trust of India tweeted a video and quoted Ganguly as saying: “Let them fight their battle. I don’t know what’s happening there, I just read in the newspapers. In the sports world, I realised one thing that you don’t talk about things you don’t have complete knowledge of.” Wimp.

Spat over a “drone attack” on Kremlin

Last week, Russia alleged that Ukraine had attempted a drone attack on the Russian headquarters of Kremlin in Moscow with the aim of killing Russian president Vladimir Putin. It was the most dramatic allegations since the war began more than a year ago.

Putin, apparently, was not in the building when the attack happened and the drone caused no material damage. However, Russia called it a terrorist attack and warned of retaliation.

Ukraine, however, denied the attack and its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was quoted as saying: “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow; we fight on our territory.”

I what Kremlin says is true, it raises questions about how protected Putin really is. And if Russia’s threats about retaliating are carried out, it could signify a further escalation in the war.

Indian Netas Have Always Had A Finger In the Sports Pie

By LokMarg

Sudipta Biswas, a sports journalist and author of Mission Gold: India’s Quest for Olympic Glory, explains the political connection in sports governing bodies

Five years back, the Indian cricket administration underwent a massive upheaval when the Supreme Court intervened to bring an end to the alleged culture of fiefdom in the BCCI. Justice Lodha Committee was given the task to clean up the mess in the world’s richest cricket body. A year later, the apex court passed a series of recommendations and appointed a three-member committee, led by former CAG Vinod Rai, to bring all the recommendations to effect.

One of the key points of the recommendations was that no official will be eligible to contest the BCCI or state associations’ elections after serving two consecutive terms, either at the national board, or, as a combination of both.

However, six years later, the Supreme Court tweaked it to allow the current president, Sourav Ganguly, the former India cricket captain, and secretary, Jay Shah, the son of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to continue to run the daily affairs of BCCI. Both Ganguly and Shah have completed the previously mandated two terms last year — which is six years — but have continued to hold their offices for months. They had previously served the Cricket Association of Bengal and Gujarat Cricket Association, respectively, in different capacities.

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On September 16, 2022, the apex court allowed modification to this clause. Now, Ganguly and Shah can serve as BCCI members for two more terms, which, effectively means, another six years at the helm. That is, by the time they end their new terms, they will complete 12 years in office without serving a cooling-off period of three years.

This is a stark shift from the Supreme Court’s earlier status quo on cricketing matters of the country. Indeed, the court has agreed to change the clause for which it once repealed Anurag Thakur from the board. While allowing them to continue for another six years, the court has also allowed the BCCI to tweak a clause to allow politicians, who were not allowed to contest elections as per the Lodha Committee recommendations, to enter the cricket administration in the country yet again.

For years sports administrations in India have been run by politicians or businessmen. It has been a recent trend that sportspersons or former athletes are coming into the administration.

The latest development has come at a time when the highest court has been busy in cleaning up the mess at the National Sports Federations (NSF). Federations that didn’t accept the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ National Sports Code, formulated in 2011, are either facing suspension or being forced to align with the codes by the Supreme Court.

The All India Football Federations (AIFF), the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), and Hockey India (HI) are a few of these latest examples.

In the past, in most of these federations, officials with a direct or indirect link to the Congress party were running the offices for over a decade. In the recent AIFF elections, the BJP-backed candidate, Kalyan Chaubey, assumed the president’s post, while the IOA presidency went to Adille Sumariwalla, a former athlete who served the Athletics Federation of India. Sumariwalla too is reportedly linked to the ruling party.

Unlike these federations, the BCCI doesn’t fall under the NSF; it is an autonomous body under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860. It doesn’t necessarily need to adhere to the ministry’s mandate. Previously, the sports ministry tried to bring BCCI under its realm, but with two ‘likable people’ currently running the show at the board, that pressure no longer exists.

As told to LokMarg

Paternity Over Fraternity

By S Kannan

Virat Kohli’s decision to return to India on paternity leave at a time when the team needs him most during the Test series in Australia, has come in for intense scrutiny.

As the strong Aussies host the Ajinkya Rahane-led side in the second Test at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) from Saturday, there are sharp comments. Sunil Gavaskar, India’s greatest opening Test batsmen of all times and the former India captain has taken more than a pot-shot at Kohli for returning home on paternity leave.

Writing a column for a well-known sports magazine, Gavaskar pointed out how there are different yardsticks for different players of Team India. It is well known that T Natarajan, the sensational left-arm fast bowler who created waves during the IPL in UAE and also the T20 and ODI series with his yorkers has still not seen his newborn child, born in October.

Mind you, Natarajan is now just a nets bowler but has not been spared by the Indian cricket board (BCCI). It is also on this premise, Gavaskar has slammed Kohli for getting special treatment.

To be sure, this is not the first time Gavaskar has criticized Kohli. The last time when Kohli and Anushka Sharma broke the big news on social media, they were expecting a third member in their family, Gavaskar made a very spicy comment. He had talked of what Kohli had been doing during the lockdown. His comments drew huge flak from fans of Bollywood celebrity Anushka.

There is a difference between what Gavaskar said then and now. The Indian team was battered in the first Test in Adelaide and call of duty demanded Kohli stayed back with the team. However, as Kohli had already applied for paternity leave in October, before the team was selected for the tour to Australia, the “yes men” in the BCCI granted him leave.

It is well known, leave of any nature in any professional organisation is subject to approval and can be cancelled at the last minute. What is surprising is that not only has the BCCI granted him leave, they are not even talking about a possible revision.

The concern of the BCCI is IPL alone, and the latest decision to include 10 teams from 2022 shows they do not care for what happens in national interest – playing for India.

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Gavaskar is not alone to question Kohli. There are a few more like former left-arm spinner Dilip Doshi and AN Sharma, coach of Virender Sehwag, who have also expressed surprise at Kohli neglecting national duty.

Modern day sport is all about being professional. Kohli is not an amateur cricketer. When he leads IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore, he is a pro who is paid big bucks and makes billions more through endorsements. When Kohli plays for India, he is again a professional who gets paid on an annual contract basis.

It is not as if deducting Kohli’s match fees for the three Test matches which he will be missing will suffice. A leader like Kohli, already under flak for being captain in all three formats, should not have proceeded on leave.

The job of the Indian cricket captain is a very prestigious one. The world wishes he and Anushka are blessed with a healthy baby but as a professional he has got his priority wrong this time. Those who advocate a man being by the side of his wife during delivery are all praise for Kohli’s decision.

But above all this comes the pride and feeling of leading Team India. It is very much akin to a fauji doing national duty on the battle front where he has to forget personal life. Life and death, near and dear ones being ill, for the soldiers and officers of Indian Armed Forces, serving the nation comes first.

That is why what Gavaskar is saying has huge traction. Just imagine, Kings XI Punjab player Mandeep Singh lost his father during the IPL in October. He stayed back, wiped, his own tears, and continued to play. This was just club cricket, but Mandeep showed that being a professional meant his loyalty was first towards work.

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There are many more instances as well. In fact, a few years ago, even during a Ranji Trophy game, Wasim Jaffer, former India Test captain, stayed back and played despite being informed that he had lost his mother. Jaffer won the match for Mumbai then and the bonus points, making him a big hero.

In women’s hockey, in January 2019, Lalremsiami from Mizoram played on the FIH series semi-finals after her father’s death. She was then given the option by the team management to fly back home from Hiroshima but chose to stay back.

The job of any athlete representing the country is a very prestigious one. Indian athletes are known to play with passion and from their hearts. The josh and dil se attitude quite often makes the difference in a team sport.

This is the time Team India needs Captain Virat Kohli in Australia. His batting form is good and he is now accepted as a strong leader. In the absence of a few key players like Rohit Sharma, Mohd Shami and Ishant Sharma, Kohli should have led like a true General from the front.

Should India lose the series badly, brickbats will be hurled at stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane and other players. Had Kohli changed his mind and played on, he could have become a bigger hero.

Sadly, at this point of time in Indian cricket administration, such is the power equation, Kohli is treated as someone who can do no wrong. If Kohli is to be blamed by so many people, then the incompetent BCCI is also to be blamed. BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has led Team India and knows what it is to play with josh.

He is the same man who dared to take off his shirt in the Lord’s balcony. How come Ganguly did not speak to Kohli and guide him on National Interest, playing for the country. If the Commander is making a wrong move, should not the General have stepped in?

The coming few weeks will see more news on Kohli returning home prematurely. One wonders how he can go to sleep at night without any guilt.

Has BCCI Lost Its Thinking Cap(ability)?

By S Kannan

From one bio bubble to another, the journey of the Indian cricketers from India to the United Arab Emirates for the Indian Premier League and now Australia for a full-fledged tour has been a tough one.

Going by the experiences of many players, coaches, commentators and even photographers who were in the UAE for the IPL, staying in the bio bubble was not easy. The restrictions were huge and because of the Covid-19 threat, everyone had to follow the protocols.

That the IPL went off well in the heat and humidity of the three desert venues in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah for over 50 days has been well chronicled. In the end, even as Rohit Sharma led Mumbai Indians crowned themselves champions for the fifth time, many questions have cropped up.

In an age where social media throws light on more aspects than even the traditional media, a few things are certain. The first is how the Indian cricket board (BCCI) led by Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah is quite opaque when it comes to transparency in several matters.

From the selection of teams first announced for the T20s, ODIs and then the four Tests, there were changes. It suggested that there have been a few issues which have not been dealt with in the most professional way.

The issue pertaining to the fitness of star batsman and ebullient Rohit Sharma is laughable. He got injured midway through the IPL. Then came the announcement Rohit was not fit for the Australia tour and he had been dropped totally.

It caused ripples as Rohit was soon seen at the nets in Dubai and also played the IPL final. This showed the BCCI was impotent and could not tell the high profile Mumbai Indians franchisee that they should not risk Rohit. For the record, the franchise owners are high profile.

Today, Rohit has been included in the Test squad even though there is still a big question mark over his fitness. Yes, he can bat and hit sixes in the IPL. But the series in Australia will be very different. The Aussies have had a very good domestic season and picked the players in form.

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Going by media reports emanating from Down Under, the Indians have resumed training in the bio bubble. As regards Rohit Sharma, his fitness is not 100 per cent. First, coach Ravi Shastri said in a TV interview that Rohit’s injury is such, it can flare up again. For those not familiar with medical jargon, his Grade 2 hamstring tear has not healed and even during the IPL his fielding was an apology.

More recently, in an interview to a weekly magazine in India (The Week), Sourav Ganguly has said Rohit is only 70 per cent fit. It means, he could have aggravated the injury further during the IPL and the BCCI was a mute spectator to it.

It is well known, the IPL is cricket plus commerce. However, despite knowing players are injured, if the BCCI is unable to crack the whip and tell the franchise teams not to risk players, then there is something wrong.

Agreed, the IPL had great TV viewership figures and brought the fans a lot of cheer as watching Corona virus news and other banal stiff had become boring. Yet, for the IPL to wreck Indian players before an important tour seems to have been ignored.

This is not the first time the IPL has caused injuries to players. Even last year, before the ICC World Cup in England, the IPL was held. Many players had picked up injuries, though, at that time, Rohit Sharma was in blazing form.

Today, apart from Rohit, speedster Ishant Sharma is on the rehab list and even spinner Varun Chakravarthy is out because of an injury. The BCCI, headed by a former India captain needs to understand the importance of work load management and dealing with injuries.

It is easy to say injuries are part and parcel of any sport or athlete’s career. However, if it comes to other cricket playing nations, in the club versus country debate, playing for the nation is surely the top priority.

Perhaps, in a sport like professional football, the clubs have so much control over the super stars that the players have to give 100 per cent to the clubs. There have been instances where before the FIFA World Cup, top players have picked up injuries. It happened last year as well during the FIFA World Cup. However, footballers know they cannot hide injuries and their shelf life is much less than compared to cricketers.

The build-up for the India vs Australia series has begun. The Aussie media has been harping on how they love to have a go at Kohli and sledging will be an integral part of it. Of course, there are many who admire Virat Kohli for his batting artistry.

So, what are India’s chances Down Under?

Frankly speaking, this is going to be a very hard tour. The IPL players may be good for the T20s and ODIs but the Aussies are in a hungry mood. During the last tour to Australia, India did well, when MS Dhoni was part of the shorter format teams. This time, not having played ODIs for long, not having played domestic cricket at all, the Indians will be under immense pressure, physically and mentally.

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Last but not the least, why on earth does the BCCI want to treat Kohli so specially where he will play only one Test and return on paternity leave. It is understandable he wants to be with wife Anushka Sharma when the new one arrives in January 2021.

Ideally, Kohli should not be given so much space and freedom. The Test captaincy reins can be handed over to seasoned Ajinkya Rahane, a proven batsman with leadership skills, for all four matches.

Perhaps, the time has also come for India to look at captaincy being shared as flogging Virat Kohli all the time is not necessary. Indian cricket has made the same mistake before, when MS Dhoni handled captaincy in all the formats.

When cricket teams like Australia and England have split captaincy, India, too, needs to learn. The process of grooming the next leader in Indian cricket is not something which has to be done to spite Kohli.

There has to be clear thinking, which has been advocated by former stars like Gautam Gambhir as well. Kohli is the jewel of Indian cricket but he cannot be there forever. His control over Indian cricket and partnership with Shastri are very thick.

Perhaps, in the larger interest of Indian cricket, the BCCI bosses need to put on their thinking caps. Rightaway. Give it a thought Mr Ganguly.

Money Talks: IPL Organisers Are Shameless

By S Kannan

In forty days, the Indian Premier League, cricket’s most hyped club tournament, will be roaring in the United Arab Emirates. Given the situation now in India, with COVID-19 surge, it is impossible to think of hosting any sporting event. Forget a tournament, even in the local area of your city, playing sport is still considered risky.

Ideally, in such a situation, where sporting action is near zero and even elite athletes preparing for the postponed Tokyo Olympics are struggling to get going, there is no place for cricket. Even Australia has postponed the ICC World T20, another blockbuster cricketing event.

Sadly, the mandarins who “head” cricket administration in India (read BCCI) by default, Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah, have ensured the IPL takes place. Nobody minds watching the IPL, which is more commerce and less cricket. But the timing of the event is baffling and why are the organisers so desperate for a club event that it is being moved offshore to a country like UAE.

Ideally, if at all cricket has to resume in India, it has to be first at the club level, then national level. If things get better and the COVID-19 situation improves, one can think of international cricket, maybe in 2021. Ignoring the ground realities, the government has given the permission for the event to be staged abroad. There are many reasons why this permission should not have been given.

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For those familiar with off-shore cricket having been played in the UAE in the late 1980s and 1990s, images of Sharjah should be fresh in memory. The anti-India slogans, a mix of glitz and glamour, mafia dons appearing on stands, Bollywood starlets in the background, cannot be erased. Cricket in Sharjah then became synonymous with players from India and Pakistan being paid huge “benefit funds”. One is not sure how this money was generated but the benefactors did not mind it. However, once it became clear that cricket in the Gulf was not clean, viewers started avoiding it.

A similar heady mix was recreated in 2008 as IPL, bringing together cricket mania and Bollywood glamour. Money flowed in. Before the lockdown, brand values of top IPL teams as of March 2020, stand as follows: Mumbai Indians – ₹809 crores; Chennai Super Kings – ₹732 crores; Kolkata Knight Riders – ₹629 crores and; Royal Challengers Bangalore – ₹595 crores.

Clearly, the stakes are high, despite the fact the BCCI has lost its title sponsor (Vivo) for this season. The brand value of the Vivo sponsorship deal was estimated at ₹450 crores. As Vivo has now pulled out of this year’s IPL deal, owing to an anti-China sentiment post-Galwan valley clashes on LAC, the BCCI is hoping they can get a new title sponsors for even half that sum. Strangely, Patnajali is being touted as a front-runner for the slot.

For the sake of these big bucks, COVID-19 protocols are being compromised. Everyone knows that creating a bio bubble is not easy. That has been done in England and Europe for hosting football tournaments and cricket as well. It succeeded to some extent but there is still risk in a sport like cricket (IPL).

You can ban the fans from stadia in UAE and host the IPL just so that the broadcaster shows tamasha cricket which will be played in high temperatures and extreme humidity. It will be killing for the players. The players have not played any matches and their bodies, despite all training, will be still fragile. To punish the player’s body for holding IPL, a glorified club event, is shocking.

To put it bluntly, the BCCI and IPL governing council are shameless. For them, commerce is more important than health and safety. One galling fact is that even former greats of the sport like Sunil Gavaskar and even Rahul Dravid are batting for the event.

Even though the cases of COVID-19 have shown a decline, one cannot gloss over the fact that UAE had 62,525 positive cases. The recovery was 56,568 and death toll 357. As of now, it is the only country near India which has allowed tourists to fly in. The passenger only needs to have a negative COVId-19 test report 96 hours before boarding the flight.

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Cricket fans know the IPL has a huge sprinkling of foreign players, where Aussies, Englishmen, West Indians and Sri Lankan players compete. Australia has not opened its international borders and to imagine they will allow players to fly out for the IPL is bizarre. Yet, for the dreamers, the IPL will be on!

Another important fact which cannot be glossed over is how IPL cricket in the UAE is likely to generate huge volumes of betting. Even though sports betting is illegal in the UAE, anyone with a faint idea of how hyped cricket events operate, knows betting takes place in a very clandestine atmosphere. There have been instances of the IPL (2010) in India, getting into controversy because of betting, match fixing and spot fixing.

Is betting being given permission unofficially or are there other compulsions that cricket in the slam bang T20 format has to be played at any cost. The way things are, controlling betting even in domestic Indian football is impossible, as was the case recently in Goa.

Even when the IPL is played in India, there is concern over dubious men being seen near the dressing rooms. Players are under scrutiny and also who they talk to on the phone. People have still not forgotten the old incidents involving players like S Sreesanth and how Chennai Super Kings name was tarnished.

As far as international cricket is concerned, the world body (ICC) has mechanisms to check any shady activity. However, given the fact that the IPL is a glorified club event, there are no institutional checks over what goes behind the stadium. If you think this is for the benefit of players, you are mistaken. They are mere pawns who play to earn pay cheques while the shady characters will sweep big money.

That is IPL for you, where the common man claps and cheers while the dark underbelly operates without batting an eyelid. Raise your voice to stop this farce, at least for one year, when Corona virus has crippled millions.

(The writer is a senior sports journalist. The views and opinion expressed in the article belong solely to the author)