IPL, cricket board have become easy targets

Controversy never ceases to leave the Indian Premier League, and so it has been as the ninth season got under way last week too. In the past though, the problems arose from internecine issues. This time, neither the IPL nor the BCCI was at blame.

The Bombay high court, hearing a public interest litigation suit filed by the Loksatta Party raising objection to water to be used for IPL matches in drought-stricken Maharashtra, ordered 13 games to be shifted out of the state.

The BCCI, already hamdstrung by several run-ins with the judiciary in recent years (the Supreme Court appointed Justice Lodha Committee recommendations are still being contested) decided to accept the high court order in toto though provision for appeal existed.

The hardships that this will entail in conducting the tournament hardly need elaboration. The decision is particularly cruel on the Mumbai and Pune franchise owners, particularly the latter. The Pune owners are new to the IPL, having won the bid at great cost after the suspension of Chennai and Rajasthan (Gujarat are the other new team), and had spent considerable time and resources in brand and loyalty building.

The franchise is available for only two years, and so every day, every home match is crucial. Now, Pune are forced to shift four of their seven home matches away, which queers the pitch for them badly.

The argument that shifting of IPL games shouldn’t matter because it has happened in the past too is inane and mixes apples with oranges. True, the second season was played in South Africa. But those were entirely different circumstances.

In 2009, the IPL was taken overseas because of the general elections. The then government would not permit the league to be played in the usual window available. This time, the tournament was all settled till the PIL was filed at the 11th hour to unsettle the league. But it is not so much the financial and logistical hardships, as the incongruity of the Bombay high court order that perplexes.

How does relocating matches improve the woeful condition of those affected is the fundamental question which remains unanswered by the court’s order.
Apart from Maharashtra, 10 other states have been declared drought-affected in India, including Gujarat and Telengana, both of which have teams playing in the IPL with their quota of ‘home’ games unaffected.

That 60 lakh litres of water would be used on the 20 IPL matches in Maharashtra became the crux of the arguments in the court and the bane of this year’s tournament. Assurances given by the Mumbai and Pune franchises that no potable water would be used, the water would be paid for and '5 crore each would be donated to drought relief did not cut any ice.

The high court appears to have been swayed by the negative image of the country’s cricket administration rather than the merits of the case. While the BCCI can be faulted for a myriad reasons, surely it is not responsible for the lack of rain!

Shifting matches away from Maharashtra is no panacea for the crisis in the state. Wherever these matches will be played, the same — if not more — water will still be used for making the grounds match-worthy.

Interestingly, the PIL filed in the high court was against the state government, not the BCCI, though IPL matches became the subject matter, as it were, given the popularity of the sport and high profile of the league.

Loksatta Party president Surendra Srivastava who filed the PIL, acceded that without bringing IPL into the picture, the drought in Maharashtra would never have got the attention it needed. In that sense, the Bombay HC entertaining the PIL was important. The drought has been there for over two years, but had been glossed by politicians, media and public.

This case brought the gravity of the situation to the national consciousness. But the order for shifting matches makes the BCCI, rather than the state executive, the villain of the piece. That was neither the objective of the PIL nor is it the truth.
Of course the BCCI should have been seized of the crisis and been proactive in collaborating with the state in assisting with the relief. The cricket establishment has several politicians who could not have been ignorant of ground realities.

But there were better ways in which the BCCI could have been made to participate in the relief measures rather than ordering the shifting of matches, which the court has done in its wisdom. As I see it, this is like giving a band-aid to a patient with a heart condition. The intent is laudable, but the remedy only symbolic, not tangible.