with or without foreign participation.
Because it is the clearest statement yet that in India, cricket matters.
Because it torpedoes the precedent being set that India is an unsafe country to play cricket.
Because if teams use the IPL precedent to stop touring India, cricket in India can go one of two ways - we reinforce our grass roots, pay more attention to domestic cricket and do what South Africa did in the apartheid years. Or let cricket wither and die.
Because it puts paid the notion that India and Pakistan are an hyphenated relationship.
Because the IPL is the most potent symbol of what can be achieved if a few Indians decide to put their minds to it. An event that came out of nothing, an idea brought to fruition in the space of 6 months, a celebration of the game and a celebration of the sheer logistics involved.
Because this is our way of life. And it is not up for compromise.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
On why the IPL must be played this year
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32 comments:
bang on. a six from Tendulkar evokes the same feeling as this post!!
Cheers Sam :)
Good form Homer.
I'm interested in the with or without foreign participation bit.
For color, there's always Brett Lee.
Cheers NC :)
Homer, agree with all your points. However I still feel it is not prudent to go ahead with IPL at this point. Reason being the general elections. There is a lot of pressure on the security forces in these times. And I fell the IPL would be an unnecessary burden on not just them, but also the intelligence agencies. I know Modi has proposed to use private security men but they would probably still need to liase with the government agencies for information. And it will only take a bunch of lunatics and one single untoward incident for everyone to declare India unsafe.
Megha,
Here is the Election schedule
http://www.indian-elections.com/election-schedule-09/index.html#schedule
And here is the IPL schedule
http://www.iplt20.com/scores-and-schedule.html
Wherever there is an overlap ( both in terms of dates and venues) the IPL schedule can be tweaked by a day or two to accommodate the polling.
Its not a problem that is insurmountable.
As regards India being unsafe, the whole purpose of the post is because India is now considered beyond the pale :)
Cheers,
Homer,
It is not just about those particular dates. There will be big shot politicians moving across the country for rallies etc thoughout the election period. Extra forces needed for the crowds etc....
Doesn't feel right to split focus from such an important and complex exercise. I am getting a little jittery :(
Megha,
I share your concerns.
But, having said that, there is just no way I can support a postponement of the IPL this year. Because then we may as well cede our cricketing agenda to the whims of terrorists or foreign players or both.
Also, if the foreign players dont show up, there is also the possibility that the IPL can be moved around a little. And if that is not workable, truncate the number of matches in the tournament - instead of a home and away leg and 7 matches per venue, let each venue hold 3 matches with the semifinalists playing 4 on home ground.
The scheduling can always be fiddled around with.
But under no circumstances should India not host the IPL this year.
Cheers,
I agree Homer. To hyphenate India and Pakistan on all issues is plain stupid. IPL must go on with or without foreign participation and guess what, the crowds will still throng to the grounds and we will still watch them.
As for the general election Megha, we cannot stop our way of life just because we have to go and vote. And seriously, do we have to postpone a whole tournament because the GC is happening in stages around the country? Why don't we stop all weddings during the month of GC? Or how about stopping all corporate functions? Since when did we allow a remote threat to undermine our way of life? This is what you get from weak assed politicians who rather than take the responsibility of stopping the threat ask us to withdraw in a shell. If our players can't play in our country without the fear of getting hurt what statement do we make to the world about our ability to protect the citizens of our country?
Couldn't agree more with all of it.
eh.read GC in my previous post as GE!
I agree, no point in postponing the IPL. If something happens, it happens. Do what you have to do, and can do. And deal with the consequences. The BCCI just need to make sure they have a plan to deal with the consequences. No point in going with a plan that reads "Hope like hell nothing happens". The Mumbai killers were clever and cruel. The folks who backed them could do something now that they have seen the fallout from this attack. Not necessarily during the IPL, but before.
I agree it should IPL should be conducted. It would stop the lumping of India and Pakistan together in security issues.
IPL will coincide with the elections. It can not be postponed and financial constraints will ensure it wont be cancelled.
This will cause concerns and major security overhaul will be required considering the 26/11 experience.
I don't know anything about the elections, but if they are not a factor, then everything Homer says is obvious common sense!
Homer, great post. Anti-IPL noises are emerging primarily from England - if they lose a test, IPL is to blame, if their players suck, IPL is to blame etc. Now, this incident is an excuse to diminish IPL and therefore try to re-establish primacy of MCC/ECB.
Individual players should decide whether it is worthwhile for them to play in the IPL or not. I am sure Shane Warne will fly in - the one guy with a mind of his own in all of the Cricket world in England and Australia. St. Adam may back out, and that is only good for IPL/Chargers. Watson was not coming anyway. Flintoff seems bullish about IPL - Oram doesnt want to come, thats fine, mate, you were not going to get an opportunity over Flintoff anyway. And why wouldnt Murali not come? - his wife is in Chennai :-)
Windies players will not get money elswhere now that Stanford has tonked(poor Chanderpaul!). Lankan players might actually be safer in India than back in Colombo.
Despite all this, I have a sense of uncomfortable feeling...
But what if madmen in Chennai attack Kapugadera or madmen in Delhi attack the daredevils?
This is a good time to do expected utility calculations. What will Indian cricket gain from the hosting of the IPL, and what will it lose if something goes wrong? These calculations have been done for every international series in the past few years now need a different set of numbers given what happened in Lahore. I wrote yesterday (here) that the IPL should go ahead. Now, I'm not so sure. Any smart terrorist would strike now, and kill cricket in the subcontinent for a long, long time. And cripple world cricket financially as well.
Homer
You have a well thought out list of possibilities on how the tournament could be planned but the question is, are the administrators thinking on those lines too? I don't see the BCCI cutting down on the number of matches bcoz of economic factors.
Prabu
While I appreciate your sentiments (and believe me, I would probably be the last person to want to see India and Pakistan hyphenated in security matters or to "stop our way of life") there is a lot of difference between weddings and corporate functions(that are probably a couple of days long and don't require as much security cover) and a tournament that runs for a month and a half and includes foreign players that have to move from one place to another and has to manage a huge number of spectators that would turn up for every match.
Even my initial reaction was to go ahead with it. But the more I thought about it, the lesser appealing it was. The stakes are very high. It just doesn't feel right to host IPL so soon after the incident in Lahore with major distractions in the way.
Cheers Prabu :)
Cheers Maithreyi :)
Samir,
The flip side of the argument also holds true - if we postpone the IPL, we are basically sending the message out that whenever something happens in our extended neighborhood, we will alter our plans.
So, if the Maoists run wild in Nepal, say good bye to the Sri Lankan tour. Coup attempt in Bangladesh - postpone the South Africa tour. SWAT under Sharia - say no to England.
Whichever way you look at it, we stand to lose.
And if we have to lose, we might as well ensure that the IPL functions as a well advertised domestic tournament and take it from there.
Cheers,
Cheers homer and thanks for the link to Jrod. Except for Hypenation, there is no other pressing concern to go ahead with the IPL except for the money lost by the BCCI and the players. If you are from India, then you will know that it is the politicos who cry hoarse over anything and everything just to garner the votes. Let IPL be shelved for the year and play it at anyother time when slot is available. The heavens will not fall if IPL is not played now and here
Agreed RGB... And the security overhauls was required anyways, given the experiences of 2008.
Cheers,
Cheers Jonathan :)
Raj,
Then lets be hostage to the whims of madmen - where do we draw the line as to how we lead our lives and how far we let our lives be dictated by others?
Cheers,
Megha,
The administocrats have plenty to lose to not be flexible :).
And I think there has already been some movement in that direction.
Cheers,
Agreed Someone's dad, but by postponing the IPL, the message sent is that India is hostage to the shennanigans of its neighbours.
So, how do you convince the Sri Lankan team to tour India in November? And how do you ensure that future tours take place as scheduled.
The situation in Pakistan is not going to get better any time soon and it will get a lot worse before it gets better - does that mean cricket leaves the sub continent?
Cheers,
Homer, i agree with your general logic but was just wondering how ECB, for instance, would react if there were security incidents in IPL. They'll simply go hammer and tongs and whip up hysteria. Not that we should let that dictate our choices.
Raj,
There is already hysteria. And that is before the first ball has been bowled in the IPL.
People are frothing in the face over hypothetical incidents - vide this
* Duncan Fletcher has cautioned England's players against playing the IPL, saying some types of terrorist attacks can be carried out more easily in India than Pakistan.
* "The traffic is often so bad in the big [Indian] cities where a lot of the cricket is played that the coach can move along only slowly at times, which turns it into a sitting duck for terrorists," he wrote in his Guardian column. "There's nothing stopping a tuk-tuk pulling up alongside and detonating a bomb.
* "If I were one of the England guys who signed up for the IPL, I would be concerned." Several leading England players, including Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, have signed lucrative contracts to play in this season's IPL, which is scheduled to start next month.
So, what gives?
Cheers,
I think Flint is still saying that there is no reason why he wont play IPL. Or was that in the context of his injury rather than this?
Anyway, life must go on, and if we started cancelling sports and entertainment, then we will only have terrorist incidents to read about all the time and the whole planet will be consumed by remains of prozac-filled refuse.
That is my view.
But the thing is I cannot rule out an attack during IPL of the type Fletcher mentions, We just cannot provide that kind of security. Besides, if I say in blog comments that something cannot happen, it happens in the next couple of months so I'd rather say now that terrorist attacks on cricketers during IPL in India may happen.
Fletcher not so long ago was being snubbed by BCCI for the role of coach!! so basically that frustration comes out
Raj,
Que sera sera :)
Cheers,
Sam,
We should have invited him over for the Chennai test. That would have shown him.
Cheers,
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