IPL Goes International: South Africa Becomes Hosts

The Indian Premier League (IPL) will no longer be “Indian” in its second edition as the tournament travels overseas and will be held in South Africa. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the apex governing body for the sport in the country, has decided that the Twenty20 IPL Championship scheduled for April will be played outside the country--South Africa. The decision was taken at a hurriedly convened meeting of the Working Committee of the BCCI in Mumbai.

The New Venue
South Africa will play host to the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The cash-rich tournament is expected to begin from April 17 to May 24, 2009 in six venues. The possible venues for the event include Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. South Africa scored an edge over England as a potential host of the cash-rich event because of the conducive weather in the April-May period. Cops in England had also expressed concern over providing foolproof security for the event at such a short notice.

Earlier various State Governments including that of Maharashtra refused to provide security for the matches scheduled through April and May and coinciding with the 2009 general elections. In all 14 matches were scheduled in Maharashtra alone that coincided with the elections. There was no opposition from the franchise owners over shifting the venues to another country.

According to the IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi, the matches would be timed to suit the Indian television audiences. The original schedule of two matches per day at 4pm and 8pm Indian time would be adhered to. The second edition of IPL would be a 59-match tournament like the inaugural edition. The telecasting right is one major source of earnings. In 2008 edition of the IPL, franchisees alone earned around Rs 27 crore from tele-casting rights.

The matches will be played at 12.30pm and 4.30 pm (South Africa time) so that it is televised at 4 pm and 8 pm IST in India.

Ill-Conceived ScheduleThe unimaginative and insensitive IPL championship organisers proposed an ill-conceived schedule for the second edition of the tournament during the very weeks when everyone knew that the general elections would be underway. The IPL and the BCCI did not show a sense of responsibility by insisting that the tournament be held more or less as per their schedule albeit with minor adjustments in utter disregard for the country’s security concerns. This was even when the Centre had expressed to the IPL its inability to provide central forces for security even as the Election Commission has begun hinting that it may need more forces for peaceful conduct of the five-phase elections.

In the present atmosphere, where the threat from terrorist organisations is real, it would have been a nightmare for any state to provide security at a major cricket tournament and to international and domestic cricketers, and hold elections as well. The Union Hpme Minister P. Chidambaram even went to the extent of appealing to the ‘patriotic sentiments’ of the IPL organisers in trying to make everyone understand that elections have to be the first priority for a nation and not glitzy entertainment, no matter how popular it may be.

In its manipulative handling of the long-drawn drama that preceded the shifting of the venue of the IPL outside the country, the BCCI has demonstrated that it is not afraid to even take on the might of the Indian State. It first tried to win over as many States as possible in its effort to get over security issues in order to satisfy the legitimate security concerns of the Home Minister.
It used the media to great advantage by drumming day in and day out that if India cannot host the IPL, the world will equate it with Pakistan and India will be seen as a weak State. In most television debates, the hosting of the IPL became a symbol of India’s national pride.

There is no doubt that cricket matters in India because the people take it seriously. The BCCI’s clout accrues from this popular interest. And it was in the interest of the game that critics hushed reservations about some of the IPL’s suspect procedures. Its opaque decision-making, for instance, and turf wars with wannabe leagues.

After all, domestic cricket would find new utterance with this league format. But now the IPL chooses to amplify that turf mentality by making it seem India is not safe for cricket as usual. That is certainly not the case in a country set to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and the next edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup. And that is certainly not fair to India’s fans or its first-class cricketers. For starters, the Government may ask Sharad Pawar, a key member of the Union Government and the cricket establishment, just what his views are and what he can do to retrieve the situation.

The shifting of the second edition of the IPL is going to have long-term consequences. Whatever the domestic wrangling, the rest of the world will make a commonsensical deduction — that the Government of India believes the country is not safe enough to host a high-profile sports event. The implications for the 2010 Commonwealth Games — British and Australian athletes have already raised an alarm and will now cite the IPL’s fate as further evidence — are obvious. Cricket’s 2011 World Cup is now also in the grey zone.

Security Issue
With security being the cornerstone of the Government’s opposition to the event — all the talk of changing the event’s scheduling to after the polls with adequate cover being just so much hot air since everyone is well aware that there are simply no alternative dates available — it sends out a weak signal from the establishment. The IPL is just one — admittedly high-profile — aspect of daily life, and by saying it was unable to guarantee sufficient forces to protect the event, the government of the day has effectively admitted that beyond conducting the five days of the election, its hands are tied when it comes to emergencies that may arise at the same time. Also, the IPL’s decision has raised a very genuine spectre.

What now comes in the way of further international events being called off? The Commonwealth Games in the capital are just over a year away, and security fears have already been aired. The Davis Cup fixture between India and Australia in Chennai, slap-bang in the middle of the polls, hangs in the balance with the Australians unwilling to travel to India. Post 26/11 and the attack in Lahore on the Sri Lankan Test team, it was always on the cards that the IPL would face a hard time from the establishment — with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram making the astonishing claim that not just in host States or centres, there could be problems if elections were being held in adjoining states. That statement would have been the final nail in the coffin as far as holding the second edition of the IPL was concerned for the organisers.

It is not that the Government does not stand to monetarily benefit either. For, in 2008, the Government earned Rs 91 crore in tax on payments made to players, umpires, coaches and commentators among others. But governments, as they are supposed to be in any responsible democracy and welfare state, are not dictated by commercial benefits. It is far more necessary to ensure the safety and security of a month-long electoral process in the world’s largest democracy, which, unfortunately, is surrounded by a mix of both authoritarian and dysfunctional regimes, one of which believes in exporting terrorism as an instrument of State policy.

The Other Angle
It is apparent that the Government and the senior leadership of the Congress wanted to scuttle the IPL. A whole host of reasons — the IPL Governing Council’s denial of permission for political advertising; the Congress’s resolve to snub Pawar in Maharashtra; Rajasthan politics that decided Modi was persona non grata — came into play. Pawar was President of the BCCI when the IPL was conceived and Modi is the League’s Commissioner. While one is a political heavyweight and the other only small fry.

At another level, the party simply cannot live with a sports event — or perhaps any event — it does not have absolute or proxy control of, that it cannot claim political ownership of. An establishment that still measures sports extravaganzas by the standards of the State-sponsored 1982 Asian Games just cannot make sense of the new energies that drive events like IPL. This was the core issue; terrorism only the convenient excuse. What the IPL fiasco establishes is that if the Government does not want something, it can simply scotch it and use national security as its rationale.

Chances of Pakistani Players
Pakistani players may get a chance to feature in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season as at least one of the franchises is keen to have their Pakistani sign-ups to play for them. At least four Pakistani players including Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul, Misbah-ul-Haq and Kamran Akmal could be in line to play for their old franchises in the IPL which will be now held in South Africa after being shifted from India.

Since the IPL is now not being held in India the franchises are thinking about asking for permission from the organisers to bring back their Pakistani players on board for the tournament. The Kolkata Knight Riders was one team that had already indicated it wanted pace bowler Umar Gul back while Rajasthan Royals were also eying all-rounder Sohail.

Pakistani players were stopped from going to India to play in the 2009 IPL by the Government after relations with India deteriorated following the Mumbai terror attack in November 2008. But with the IPL being shifted abroad, even the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has stated that it would speak to the Government and Indian board to find out if Pakistani players can take part in the lucrative competition now.