Few takers for India? Sponsors want quality - Harsha Bhogle

[DesiChap]

Few takers for India? Sponsors want quality Harsha Bhogle Posted online: Friday, May 18, 2007 at 1001 hours IST Updated: Friday, May 18, 2007 at 1003 hours IST May 18: I am not surprised at all that there are few takers for India’s unnecessary venture to Ireland. If anything, it gladdens me because it suggests, as the financial analysts like to say, that there is a full blown correction on in the cricket equity stakes. Sponsors are asking for quality, they are unwilling to back lame horses, and that is a sign of health, not despair. Since sponsors speak the language of money, and since that is the language that Indian cricket is most conversant with, they have a vital role to play in regulating Indian cricket. When they rush in, as part of a herd, they inflate prices and anything that is illogical and hasty is unhealthy. There is no doubt that the over-supply of money has fattened Indian cricket, and I’m not only talking of those that play the game but more of those that manage it, and has diverted it from its principal objective of producing winning teams. It isn’t that the arrival of money is bad in itself but it tends to lull people into thinking that all is well. Indian cricket needs to be marketed too, its image needs to be looked after too especially at a time like this, when fans are feeling let down and the marginal followers have deserted it. This was the time to sneak below the radar and do some serious planning, take some hard decisions. Instead we are playing irrelevant cricket. This week’s issue of Time has a very interesting cover story on the English Premiership and of what happened, or what was forced on them, after the dismal years of the late eighties; poor stadiums, hooliganism and soccer deaths. Football would still have survived, people would still have come in to watch. Instead stadiums were upgraded, a Premier League got created and the best stars played against each other regularly because that is what the simple football fan wanted. There is a lesson there for Indian cricket as indeed there is for the television stations. You cannot take the fan for granted. If you are dipping into his pocket, you must give him quality; if you promise him sport you cannot allow it to peep in between the advertising. So we play Bangladesh in May, play the Afro-Asia Cup (a tournament conceived for the wrong reasons) and stroll over to Ireland in search of more money. An off season would have been good. When you have wounds you need to allow them time to heal. And so India are in Bangladesh in an everything-to-lose situation. Most teams like to be in the opposite situation where they have nothing to lose and, therefore, have little to worry about. To no one’s surprise the one-day series didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know. There were two people in the team who seem to have the right mix but in truth are there not because they are leagues ahead of everyone else but because there is nobody else. It is not the best reason to be selected. Sehwag is the batsman who can bowl and Mongia is a little bit of everything. Over the years they have shown up the difference between looking attractive and being effective. Mongia can complain that he has been in and out and has never had a long enough run. But that is the story of his cricket. Over six years he has managed 57 appearances and you have to now ask yourself if that isn’t enough time for a player to shine through. And what do we do now with Sehwag? Having decided that he didn’t merit a place in the Test squad against Bangladesh it seems difficult to assume he will be good enough against England in England. And with the search for his one-day form now having to be called off, you can’t take him to Ireland either. The problem is we haven’t allowed ourselves to learn a little more about Robin Uthappa and must now pick him, much like searching for a partner on the rebound, for the wrong reasons. You select a player because he scores runs not because someone else hasn’t! I’ll be watching Zaheer Khan very closely during the two Tests for he is showing signs of his old inconsistency. It has been the story of his life. Maybe, a good coach will sort him out. Maybe, there will be a coach! And Yuvraj Singh has left the highs of 2003-04 behind. Anybody who saw his 139 in Australia should be amazed that he isn’t among the leading batsmen of the world, at least in the limited overs game. But again with Yuvraj, it is the past rather than the present that so often seems more attractive. There is a very good FA Cup final coming up. If I was a marketing man at the BCCI, I’d keep my eyes open to see how many people are watching that.