ODI World Cup has just ended and after three days a five-match T20 series is going to take place in India with the World Cup Champion team. BCCI knows that whenever and wherever the Indian Cricket Team plays people are going to watch and that will make a lot of money so BCCI doesn’t care about players’ fitness, mental health, and relaxation they just want money.
We’ve experienced that the amount of fans who were attracted to this Sport in the 90s and early 2000s has kept decreasing over the decades. Money-making mafias have fully taken over Cricket with the help of Politicians and Cricket which was going in a good way before 2000 is constantly losing desirability among the people. No doubt in terms of viewership and richness, this Sport has come so far but that is only because of the Indian Audience and IPL. Australia, England, and India are now the only left countries where Cricket is still breathing and India is sitting in the driving seat. Over the years we’ve seen many teams emerging at the global levels have slowly disappeared from World Cricket and now those teams remain only ICC associates such as Kenya, Bermuda, Irelands, Zimbabwe, etc. If we keep associates side then there are some world champion teams that are struggling to Survive in the Cricket World such as West Indies, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. The way the Indian Cricket Board has constantly become richer day by day and other boards are struggling to pay players match fee shows how Indian politics and money laundering is killing the Cricket. In this article, we’ll do a case study on how the Board of Cricket Control for India(BCCI) left the Sport behind the money.
History
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Once upon a time, BCCI was paying ‘Durdarshan’ for broadcasting until South Africa returned to international cricket, and South African sports Administrator Ali Bacher suggested to BCCI administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya that he could ask for money for broadcasting these matches in South Africa. It was 1991 when the first broadcasting rights were sold by BCCI for approximately to a South African channel after that Doordarshan sued BCCI for selling the rights but later Supreme Court ended the monopoly of Doordarshan by confirming that the BCCI is the official Owner of broadcasting rights of matches when Indian Cricket Team is playing in home and the board could sell these rights to anyone. India was rich in population so many big companies across the globe wanted to market their products in India and cricket was the most popular thing in television those days so after television rights globalisation became the second biggest asset for the board to make money. The sport that at a point wasn’t able to provide enough salary to its players slowly made a country the biggest global market. That was the time when the main purpose of that money was to provide world-class facilities to Indian players and produce good talents at ground level so that the Indian future could be bright, but that didn’t go for long.
Maney making mafia
Between the late 90s and early 2000s, the money-making mafias entered the field when they realized that cricket had become the biggest money-making forte. It was the time when the world was introduced to this word called fixing in Cricket. Fixing and other money scandals have become the highlights and many big players from across the globe have been called guilty and they’ve lost their careers. India was not the only country to face these insults in front of the World but India slowly has become the biggest citadel for scammers. The famous India vs South Africa series which is considered the biggest fixing scandal shook the whole world. That was the start of money-capturing sports. Fixing in cricket is illegal and there are many big players who have paid for their mistakes, but then the money-making procedures started by BCCI which has killed the cricket legally.
IPL: blessing or curse?
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The success of IPL is the main reason why BCCI is the richest cricket board in the World. In 2007 Zee Entertainment Enterprises started its own cricket league which is called the Indian Cricket League and so many big names in cricket joined this league BCCI didn’t like it started putting a lifetime ban on those players who dared to join the ICL and that made ICL to disappear. At that time T20 was new to the fans but when India won the first T20 World Cup in 2007 BCCI found out that this format could be the most liked format in the future and then they stole the Idea of ICL. The on-time current vice president of BCCI Lalit Modi was the main face in the making of this league. IPL was conducted for the first time in 2008 and no one expected that this league would be a big success. Because of the population and craze of cricket, IPL has become one of the wealthiest sports leagues in the world. BCCI has realized that Indian players are the key factors of our richness so they decided not to allow Indian Cricket Team players to play in any other league around the world so that Indian fans won’t get interested in any other league and IPL will stay the biggest league in the world. Lion has tasted the blood, this effort of BCCI was no longer limited to the IPL only.
Greed of BCCI
Nowadays BCCI could manipulate any cricket Board with the money which makes them overpower ICC. when BCCI realized that India was generating the highest revenue for ICC they decided to claim that the country that generated more revenue should get more share and for support, BCCI asked from Australia and England. Both countries knew that after India we both were the biggest revenue generators for ICC so following their greed they decided to go with BCCI and controls of International cricket were shifted to the BCCI. Now BCCI has become the highest shareholder of the ICC’s revenue with approx 38% and the other two teams are getting shares of more than five percent. Because these teams put half of the ICC’s money in their pocket, the other members of the ICC are struggling to get enough money. This is clearly visible that many teams who were one of the strongest teams before the 21st century are now struggling to survive in Cricket and that is because their boards are not capable of providing enough money and facilities to their players, West Indies and Sri Lanka are the perfect examples. Imagine if the full members of ICC are trying to survive in cricket then what could be the possible conditions of the associate members which are hundreds in numbers? BCCI’s greed is the main reason that from the last two World Cups only ten teams participated and there were no group dividings so the Indian Cricket Team could play more games. If India played more the viewership would increase and with the viewership, the revenue would get bigger. In recent times we’ve witnessed the busiest schedule of the Indian Cricket Team not a single month is free of cricket in a year. Recently the ODI World Cup has ended after more than a month of continuous cricket and just after three days India is going to host Australia for five T20 games. BCCI doesn’t want Indian players to stay out of frame because that makes a lot of money for BCCI and as I told you money is all that matters to BCCI.
Politics
BCCI is a private organization but only in papers nowadays we can spot so many politicians, ex-politicians, or relatives of politicians running many state boards even the secretary of BCCI is Jay Shah who is the son of the Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah and his background doesn’t resemble with Cricket. These politicians are the masterminds behind the situation of World Cricket because they know nothing about cricket and money is the only thing that matters to them this is why they do not realize that keeping this game away from the world and focusing on making it India-centric can destroy the cricket’s legacy.
This politics is not only affecting internationally but also at the ground level which is even more dangerous to the future of cricket.
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