Its really that important!

Remember this

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a move to introduce an ordinance that would make it mandatory for private broadcasters to share the telecast of sports events with Prasar Bharati. The sharing norms are meant for sporting events of ‘national importance’, but the proviso remains undefined.

Under the aegis of "national importance", DoorDarshan telecast ODIs left, right center and straigh. And all the while disregarding the Ranji, Deodhar and Irani Trophies.

Then, "national importance" took a new twist

A large number of television viewers in the country will be deprived of watching the cricket Test series between India and South Africa as Doordarshan will not telecast the three-match series. Citing a High Court case, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the Test series did not fall under the purview of the “national importance” and thus Doordarshan will not telecast it.

Following this, I was content in the knowledge that ODI's trump Test Cricket and India's domestic cricket in the list of issues on "national importance" at Mandi House.

Till I read this article in the Hindu

Defending the live coverage of Rajiv Gandhi Rural Cricket Tournament in Amethi by DD Sports, the Congress on Monday said these events deserve to be adequately covered in the media

Three teams

three impressive selections -

The India Squad for the Tri Series in Bangladesh and the Asia Cup in Pakistan

Squad Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha.

Emerging Players Tournament

Squad for Australia Parthiv Patel (capt), S Badrinath (vice-capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Manoj Tiwary, Abhishek Nayar, Virat Kohli, Amit Mishra, Pankaj Singh, Manpreet Gony, Siddharth Trivedi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Iqbal Abdulla, Ravinder Jadeja, Pinal Shah.

Tour of Israel

Squad for Israel Jaydev Shah (capt), Swapnil Asnodkar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravi Teja, M Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha, Rajat Bhatia, Yogesh Takawale (wk), Rakesh Dhruv, Mohnish Parmar, Vishal Bhatia, Basant Mohanty, Pradeep Sangwan, Ashok Dinda, R Vinay Kumar
--

There have been a few quibbles ( not entirely unjustified) about the non inclusion of Badri and Tiwary and Gony for the national cap. However, I feel that the selectors have got it right.

Badri and company will be more severely tested playing Australia and South Africa and New Zealand at Brisbane than they will be playing UAE in Lahore. And, from a medium and long term point of view, this series should benefir them more than playing against Bangladesh or a now weakened Pakistan or a HongKong.

The one issue I had was the selection of Jaydev Shah as captain of the team for Israel. Granted that it is but an exhibition match(es), but I could not escape the feeling that Mr Shah was in the squad ( and leading it ) because he was Mr Shah's (Niranjan) boy ( and remember that Vengsarkar and Niranjan have had their run ins regarding Jaydev's selection before).
Having said that, Jaydev was captain of a Saurashtra side that made it to the semi finals of the Elite League of the Ranji Trophy in what was one of the closest ( if not the closest) Ranji Championships ever.

Therefore, apologies are in order.

Overall though, I am pretty impressed by the teams selected. And Sachin's injury could not have happened at a more opportune time ( unlike 2004 ).

We have a good mix of players now, and a roster that is fairly deep. Which augurs well for the rest and recuperation periods of our Test team. Who need to be at their peak against the spinner less Australians, come October.

A triumph of logistics,

The inaugural IPL has been.

From the initial auction all the way down to the prize distribution ceremony, the scale and magnitude of the IPL was staggering.

And to think that, except for a few complaints on late player payments and the less than exemplary handling of some of the players by their franchises ( Priety Zinta, Shahrukh Khan), there have been nothing but good things said about the IPL is testament to the meticulousness of the planning and the execution and the behind the scenes work put in by the tournament organizers.

The more I think about the logistics involved, starting from ticket distribution to player transport, from ground and stadium preparation to hauling TV crews across 8 cities in a geography as large as India, from ensuring blanket news coverage of the event to the actual staging of it, from a spectacular opening ceremony to an equally spectacular closing, I am staggered!

And what is more staggering is that from conceptualizing the event to its actual execution, the total time was less than 6 months.

Think about it!

And the BCCI should too, because they have proven beyond any doubt that if they set their minds to it, they are as good as, if not better, than any other organization. Their marketing skills were never in doubt, their organizational skills have shone through the IPL. Can they now take this opportunity to make institutional changes to the structure of the BCCI, by institutionalizing all that has been ad hoc thus far?