There is not long to go for the start of the tenth season of IPL – it begins on April 5th, 2017. A lot has changed in Indian cricket since the last time IPL was held.
It’s only been a year, but the entire team running the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been demolished and replaced by a new management, directly appointed by the Supreme Court of India. The jury is still out on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but change was what you wanted, well, you have got it!
The IPL is the most important part of Indian cricket today. It signals India’s dominance in world cricket. IPL represents cricket in the modern day period. It bridges the great passion that people have for cricket with commercial interests and profitability. It is about meeting the massive demand the people of India, as well as the Indian diaspora, have for cricket.
This IPL is the tenth season of the tournament and perhaps the most important one. That’s because the media and broadcast rights for the IPL from 2018 and 2027 are up for grabs.
Last time, the right to broadcast the IPL was sold to Sony for $1.8 billion, which compares well to the $5.1 billion paid by Sky and BT for rights to broadcast the English Premier League.
This time though, we expect an even bigger deal for the IPL, one that surpasses the EPL. No, this is no joke, the IPL is going to get bigger than EPL! It can even surpass the NFL in the US, which sold its broadcast rights to ESPN for just under $5 billion recently.
Clearly, the IPL is BIG money. But there is still a cloud hanging over IPL 2017. The Supreme Court of India has ordered all state cricket boards in India that fall under the BCCI to implement the Justice Lodha recommendations.
Critics say that the Justice Lodha plan for Indian cricket would only serve to destroy the game in India. For example, for the sake of political correctness, small Indian states such as Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram – which do not even have a proper cricket team of their own – now have the same say in the running of Indian cricket as Mumbai, the heartland of Indian cricket.
This is like giving a club like Brighton or Hull the same say in the running of English football as Manchester United or Liverpool! This does not make sense and this is what happens when you sacrifice competitiveness at the altar of political correctness.
The BCCI is being hammered like never before, with “Big Three” reforms that largely favoured the BCCI being roll backed by the International Cricket Council (ICC). But unfortunately, since nobody seems to be in charge anymore at the BCCI, there hasn’t even been a murmur of protest at this humiliation of Indian cricket.
This IPL 2017 is Indian cricket’s last chance at redemption. You can only hope that the likes of Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja will be the ones making the headlines over the next couple of months – not the Supreme Court of India and certainly not Justice Lodha!
