The players auction and the huge amount that various franchisee spent on buying cricket players actually drove me to write this article. The highest bid was for the present India ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni of about Rs 6crores. Many other players fetched round Rs 3 crores to be a part of a particular team. Forget the players earning money, the main revenue generated will go in the account of our very own BCCI which is led by none other than Sharad Pawar.
Sharad Pawar, out Hon. Minister for Agriculture can fetch over 1000crores for the IPL but when it comes to debt ridden farmers, there is no way we can fetch money. BCCI was never as rich as it is now. If Sharad Pawar, as the President of BCCI can bring about this change in BCCI, why can't he do the same thing for our farmers? Certainly, there is lack of will power. Any ways, the purpose of this article was to highlight, the way cricket has progressed and has been changed into a money making business.
It all actually started with Sachin Tendulkar bagging the 100crore contract from World Tel in the year 1998. There mite be (as I was too young, I don't know) many people opposing this or voicing their concern over this contract during those days. But why should our sportsmen not earn as other sportsmen for other countries do? From then on cricket has seen a number of changes and more and more money has been involved in cricket. The recent one being, BCCI's idea to form a Indian Premier League, which will have a 20-20 tournament between 8 teams and players from all round the world. Basically, BCCI got to earn more money through this. They just had to give out television contract, a sponsorship deal and lease out the teasm to private players and sit back and count the mullah generated. That's what the BCCI has been doing for the past 3 years from the time Sharad Pawar came into power in BCCI. Where has all the money generated gone? Isn't the BCCI responsible to asnwer this question. It;s good that the players are earning more, but thats only the international players, who already get hell lot of money through sponsorships. What about the Ranji players who don't have enough talent to come upto the international level. what has the BCCI done for them?
We all know the pathetic condition out stadium's are in. You cannot walk inside the Wankhede Stadium during the match. There are no facilities for the spectators. This is the condition,just because the BCCI knows the spectators are going to come in no matter what is the state of the stands. Can't the BCCI shell out its money to change this state? We all know, how school cricket is played. 4-5 matches are on on a ground that is not even as big as one full ground. The outfield is in a even more pathetic state. Well, changing this isn's going to bring in moolah for BCCI, itz only going to bring in good players. Who cares about good players. money is all that matters.
Coming to the pathetic state of other sports in India. The shooters don't have ammunation and the shuttlers don't have shuttles. One big country cant afford even these small things. I am fed up of writing against our pathetic politicians. The reason why Sharad Pawar became the president of BCCI was that he was intrested in sports and not cricket as such. If this is his interest in sports, why cant he even hand out 5% share of BCCI's earning to other sport bodies. I feel, even if that part is put to good use we can have world class sports persons. I personally feel the recent committee in BCCI is doing a fabulous job in getting in money for BCCI, but they have been a total failure in channelizing this money. We can have a separate group of people ie. ex cricket players to channelize this money. I am pretty much sure, we will be able to change the standard of cricket in India and take it to a new level.
BCCI has been turning into the Indian Paisa League. It is a good change, but the Paisa has to be put to proper use. That is what has not been happening. Lets hope, by the end of this decade, at least we have a very good cricketing authority and India is the number 1 team in the world.
~Harshad
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