All for money

Doing things for money is fine. But doing things only for money is not. And BCCI certainly is doing things which confirm that cricket, people, morals, gratitude, all come second. First comes MONEY.

The board has this time done a thing that doesn't even cost it money. It's not about money in a direct way this time. This is about the fact that those who come in the way of money, whoever they are, whatever they are, whatever they do or have done, for the Cricket or Country or BCCI itself (as team India does not represent India, it represents BCCI actually), they will not be tolerated. Rather they will be done all the bad that can be done.

Well, this is the story of Kapil Dev and Ajit Wadekar. The two former Indian captains that were not invited on the celebration of Anil Kumble's 600 wickets' celebration. Other than Kapil and Ajit, all the captains were invited to the program. But these two were not invited because they are related to ICL, the rebel league.

The interesting fact is that India has won the Cricket World Cup only once and the captain of the World Cup winning team happens to be Kapil Dev. But this fact seems to be easily ignorable to BCCI while compared to his joining the ICL.

Any other reasons than money?

No.

On the other hand, 3 players from the West Indian Cricket team are unable to confirm their commitment to their national Cricket team due to a probable IPL clash. These players include veterans like Chanderpaul.

We shall also see a great deal of interesting things happening in the IPL matches. For example, there will be Ricky Ponting playing under Ganguly, a news that shocked even my 9 yr old niece who hardly has an interest in Cricket. I wonder what SRK thought.

Sometimes I wonder what has money make these people do.

Sometimes I think how much more is remaining.

SRK vs SRK?

We used to see such headings when two movies of a film star had a clash and released on the same date. But the new Don of Indian film industry is not going to have any such clash of his movies.

This time it's different. It's business.

As you must be knowing, Star is all set to start its super hyped show 'Kya Aap Panchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?' hosted by Shahrukh Khan. On the other hand, Sony Entertainment is betting on the Indian Premier League, the Karmyudh of cricket, and Shahrukh has a complete team owned by him playing in the league. The Kolkata Knight Riders of Khan's team, led by Ganguly are all set for a 'karbo, larbo, jitbo re'.

Both, the quiz and the league matches boast of heavy investments and are big money things. Both are going to start in the second half of April as per the information received yet. And both are eagerly awaited.

The question is, "Will these two not affect the viewerships of each other?"

I think they will.

If at all both the shows (Let me address them as shows collectively, though it is not so) clash in their timings, the viewerships will be badly affected. Generally when there is a matter of viewerships concerning cricket matches, the simple funda with the one dayers and T20 is that if India is playing, people will see the match. Else, the other program will also get almost equal or more viewers. But in case of IPL matches, there will be no team like India or Pakistan. But all the Indian players will be playing in every match. So, what will the viewers be doing?

In case there is no clash in timings of the two shows, only days clash, which is highly likely, there will still be some effect of matches on the quiz show.

It will be also interesting to see how the words 'Panchvi Pass' affect the Indian viewers and how many children prefer the show to the matches.

Still, there is doubt that if the programs really clash, the quiz will be able to save its TRPs. And both the shows will be affected as people with the remote power will be surfing the other way round whenever there are advertisements in between, giving the advertisers a bad deal.

Anyways, all we can do for now is wait and watch. And pray that there is no clash.

Indian Money league by BCMC

Actually I was planning to write the title of this blog as 'Indian Money League', but then I felt the title was not that suitable as I thought it would be. Because as soon as I typed Indian Money League, I felt it wasn't just the League, it was Entire BCCI that was working as the 'The Board for Control of Money in Cricket'. Interestingly, something that ICC finds itself unable to do that efficiently as BCCI (or BCMC) does it.

IPL, the Indian Premier League, an idea that suddenly hit BCCI hard when it saw a possibility of cricket slip off its hand. And they left no stone unturned to take all possible revenge from the guys who had dared to threat the Board, as well as ICC. I still doubt whether the BCCI people had an idea that the IPL will be such a grand success making cricket the game of million dollars for even individuals.

Anyways, who cares for that now when the stage is set and people like Vijay Mallya and Shahrukh Khan (and even Preity Zinta) are singing the IPL tune with Mr Lalit Modi, and people like Dhoni and Sachin are going to get more than a Million dollar for playing.

Actually, the question here is not about who cares for the ICL and those-who-were-left-somewhere like Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-haq, the question is, how much Cricket is involved in this business?

The money spent (or wasted) on getting the players is hardly related to their performances on ground. It is simply proportional to the 'market value' of the cricketer. Otherwise what explains Andrew Symonds getting more than thrice the amount of money than Ricky Ponting.

Another question regarding the Money Leauge is whether it will be able to maintain the standard of Cricket played by country teams. In fact I am unable to imagine yet how Saurav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting, and Shoaib Akhtar be playing together.

Though, I would really really love to see Tendulkar and Jayasuriya batting together, for Mukesh Ambani's Mumbai team. YES. That WILL BE worth watching. Pray for some beautiful innings by these two biggies.

Anyways, there is one thing good in this Indian Premier League. Whoever wins, India will not be losing. :)

When is the match by the way?