It's not about cricket

IPL-gate will not affect the future of the game

Researching for an article that appeared yesterday, Umpire’s Post read many a book based on the Hindu scriptures. There is comfort in those tomes. Whenever corruption and wrongdoing crossed limits of tolerance, there was a great turbulence: a deluge, a great war, and so on. The turbulence destroyed the existing order and created, in its place, a spanking new world.

The world of cricket is in turbulence. That was warranted. If you consider the reports — though unproven — that the civil aviation minister’s daughter, hospitality manager for the Indian Premier League, pulled an aeroplane out of a scheduled flight so it could carry her and her mates as a charter, things may have become intolerable.

However, we have come a long way from the reassuring accounts in the scriptures. The current turbulence in cricket may not create a new order which will be above suspicion. There is too much money riding on IPL. And those coveting this money are in critical positions of influence and decision-making.

A Union minister has already lost his job. Some more heads will roll. Lalit Modi may stand defiant in the face of tomorrow’s meeting, but it has to be seen how long he can hold his own against the powers that gave him the job.

According to top echelons of the government, the investigations into the affairs of IPL may be restricted to whether there were tax violations or other financial irregularities. There is no intention to go into the management of cricket in the country.

That will leave the clean-up job to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It will not be realistic to expect much of a clean-up, then. The present system is BCCI’s system. If the board was so keen on sanitation, there wouldn’t be so much muck flying around.

What contributes the most to this skepticism is that there is no outrage, no sense of gloom at large even as skeletons tumble out every day. The last time such a crisis struck cricket was when the match-fixing scandal broke at the turn of the century. That was a dark hour. It appeared that the end of the game, as we knew it, was near. It was like a death in the family. That is why, more than all the overseas wins Sourav Ganguly achieved as captain, he will always be considered great because he resuscitated the team. He forged a sense of unity and identity in a team that was on the verge of disintegration.

This time, there is immense interest, of course, though it may begin flagging now out of sheer tiredness. But no one seems to think that the future of cricket is in doubt. That may be because of the inherent nature of IPL. A scandal related to it is not seen as a threat to cricket because IPL was never cricket. It is entertainment. And just like watching a bunch of girls dance mindlessly, it is entertaining to see a new high-and-mighty get implicated every other day.

(suveen.sinha@bsmail.in)