The countdown for the second season in the IPL has started. Lalit Modi’s sleepless nights are increasing (only helped by the world’s daylight saving time memorandum). In the past two months, Modi had devoted his time juggling and deciding the venues and trying hard to provide security to the players. He panicked when he lost his Rajasthan seat and when the Indian government forced the domestic tournament out of the country; the mercury on his blood pressure monitor would have exploded out of its thin capillary.
If my research holds me in good stead, South Africa too is also holding a national and provincial election for electing a new national assembly on 22nd of April.
In an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN, Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram commented that the tournament could have been organized in two phases in the country. League matches before the elections start and knock out matches after election gets over.
PC has however had obviously not done his homework. The entire cricket playing nation calendar for the next eight months is crowded with players on national duty perpetually. The respected Home Minister and former Finance Minister has avoided considering the monetary expense in organizing matches in two phases.
If this IPL season kick starts in the boisterous mode like its predecessor and is able to draw the attention of cricket lovers in South Africa (and all over the world), it would be a tight slap on the face of the mighty Indian Government, who acted as the villain in shifting the tournament to foreign shores.
Chidambaram, without considering the backlashes, told the world that he would include himself in that ninety eight percent of audiences, who relish watching matches on TV rather than going to the stadium.
I want to remind him of the first IPL season, when people stood in queue for a solitary ticket for more than 10 hours. Before commenting on national television, he should have fitted himself in the shoes of a cricket lover rather than a minister who enjoys Z+ grade security and attending mere sporting events is dangerous to his life.
Indian cricket reached to a new height after IPL’08. A little application and man management would have made IPL-2 possible in the country itself. To the dismay of the common Indian cricket fan, however, messy politics has shoved this mega event, which might turn the face of international cricket as it stands. I think, this might be the first in history when a political party loses its standing due the shifting of a sporting venue. The last time the government tried to alter cricket schedules for the election, the India-Pakistan series in 2004, BJP lost its standing and now sits in the opposition with no political clout left in the country.
India has often fantasized about hosting the football World Cup and may be, even the Olympics in the country, but this dream might soon be a figment of imagination after this move.
Cricket is the only sport, which hogs the limelight internationally, with its players performing wonderfully well. World Cup ’11, however, looks doubtful now. Another event lost after the Commonwealth games and the Hockey World Cup, which had India as one of its hosts.
Now the interesting twist will be the international community embracing the IPL as its own and further increasing the BCCI’s muscle.
Lastly, it would be right, if South African Government organizes a crash course for their Indian counterpart to develop a way to manage election and host a tournament at the same time. Let’s wait and watch, what the IPL and the Lok Sabha election have in store for us. It would be interesting to see, has cricket become bigger than everything else or does democracy still matter to the countrymen? I shall rest my case after the final is played in Johannesburg.
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