Big Bash vs IPL: Private Ownership vs Cricket Board

[sandeep]

http://thecricketmonthly.com/story/1073633/the-big-argument-before-the-big-bash

 

Good, but really long article on how the Big Bash League was set up and how its different from the IPL.  I really like the fact that the IPL has broadened the money flows for cricketers, especially Indian domestic players.  But there are definitely long-term issues with conflict of interest that are sure to create trouble of Indian cricket.  Why should a player risk injury playing for Team India, if he knows that even if he doesn't, he still has a valuable contract and opportunity with his IPL team.  Why should the next Hardik Pandya bother putting in the hard yards honing and polishing his seam bowling in Ranji trophy, risking injury and his IPL gravy train?  Even though that's what is best for the Indian test team's needs?  

 

And the argument made by CAB, that the teams are really just trading future cash flows and getting a healthy piece of future profits rings really true.  Did we really need to give the likes of Ambanis and Shahrukh Khans, such a lucrative cash cow in order to set up an Indian league?  Its not as if the BCCI did not have enough cash reserves to finance the league's early years when it wasn't guaranteed to make profits right away.  

 

If we had to do it all over again, I think there should have been some proper linkages between existing domestic teams and the IPL.  Maybe the top 8 teams in Ranji get to participate in IPL, while the rest get 'relegated'.  This way, you incentivize players to put their best efforts for their Ranji team, knowing that it could lead to bigger riches via the T20 tournament.  

 

The current model, where the Delhi Daredevils have f-all to do with the Ranji Delhi team, means that, in theory, a Rishabh Panth could decide next year, to skip Ranji if he chose to, and just play for Delhi.  Sure, that would affect his India selection prospects, so he's unlikely to do so. For new and up-coming players, Ranji and domestic cricket act as auditions for the IPL, so they will put in their best.  But for a guy in the middle to late phase of his career, incentives can get real skewed.  

 

For a guy on the fringes, such decisions make a lot of sense - case in point - Irfan Pathan.  He clearly chose to lower his Ranji participation, in order to lengthen his IPL career - and it makes total financial sense from his personal perspective.  But absent this conflict of interest, maybe Irfan puts in harder yards in 2010 in Ranji, and plays in the 2011 tour to England at a level closer to his personal best - think about what a massive impact that could have had on that tour - where we had to fly in a fat RP Singh from Miami to open the bowling for the 4th test.  

 

The conficts of interests are real, and are a clear and present danger to Indian cricket today.  Its all good that we get to watch the world's top players in IPL, but we don't want Indian cricket's centerpiece to be just about the corporate owned T20 tournament, a big tamasha that spreads around the lucre to a larger pool of players and team owners, at the cost of future development and quality of the national Indian team.