Indian cricket's unanswered questions
After the storm, finally some plain speaking. The newly-appointed interim chief of the , Chirayu Amin, has said that a of the crisis-hit cricket tournament has begun. The details are still perfunctory, apart from the fact that officials are trying to get hold of some documents they say have gone missing from the IPL office. IPL boss Lalit Modi has denied wrongdoing.
But what must gladden the hearts of cricket lovers is Mr Amin's vow to scrap the gaudy after-match parties - a money-spinner where people paid up to $1,000 to rub shoulders with starlets, models and exhausted players. The parties had nothing to do with the game, of course.
While he is at it Mr Amin may also consider getting rid of the irritating two-and-a-half minute-long sponsored "strategic time out" breaks during the games which raked in more advertising money. Can you imagine an international football match being broken into four segments just to squeeze in more TV advertising? There is nothing wrong in tweaking the game to earn a little more money. But, as cricket writer and historian Mukul Kesavan says, it also means "making changes conservatively and, crucially, resisting the impulse to trade in the for revenue".
Mr Amin said he hasn't decided about the cheerleaders at the matches. I don't know what others think, but I find it mindless - at many grounds, the girls have complained of being teased and jeered by loutish fans. Also, what about the inappropriate ritual of franchise owners hanging around player dug-outs? Clearly, lines need to be more firmly drawn.
But all this is still a far cry from the root and branch reform, without which critics say Indian cricket will remain a cosy oligarchy accountable to nobody. Until the next crisis.
Mr Amin has admitted with some humility that the IPL governing council members were in the dark about the alleged financial misdealings of the event.
Many believe an apology is not enough. How can a governing council which admits to sleeping on the job be entrusted with investigating the same allegations? "A governing council that exercises no oversight," says Mr Kesavan, "should either dissolve itself or should be dismissed."
Also, many ask, how can two former cricketers - Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri - who are members of the same council as well as IPL match commentators be entrusted with the job of shaping next year's tournament?
And what about the potential conflict of interests within the board - members owning and promoting IPL teams, for example? What about making the board's books public?
There are no answers yet from the cricket board bosses. And the chances are, most fear, there will never be.
Critics say there is a near conspiracy of silence when it comes to the issue of transparency that involves the board (itself an opaque institution), franchises (suspected to be withholding owner information), commentators (silent on the controversy during the tournament) and the media (uncritical about everything about the IPL until the scandal broke.) There is a sense of deja vu here - everybody was silent about the bookies mingling with the cricketers in the run-up to the at the turn of the decade until two reporters - who did not cover cricket - broke the story.
Without transparency, there will be no trust between the men who run, support and report on the game and its fans. As sports writer Rohit Brijnath implores: "So fellows, first, make good policy. Second, let commentators criticise - it gives a game legitimacy. Third, don't compromise the integrity of the game. So ban advertising breaks during overs. Cricket is being played."
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