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Written by Sreeram Ramachandran
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Tuesday, 12 May 2009 12:06 |
Increasing the four-foreign player restriction holds benefits for all
A few days back, a man supporting the North London based football club Arsenal hung himself because they lost to rivals Manchester United in the semi-finals of the Champions League. That's not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the man wasn't from London or even English. He was from a different continent. He was a Kenyan, and presumably not related to any of several fellow Africans playing for the club. So somewhere in the heartland of Africa, with people dying of violence, crime, mosquitoes, famine and other such assorted issues around him (like in most other places around the world), one man killed himself because a football club - many thousand miles away from his homeland with no obvious connect as such - lost a match.
Now, wouldn't the IPL stakeholders go crazy about that?
No, not about the suicide. But about the fact someone so far away with no roots in your business has gotten so excited about your product.
Consider a few pieces of the puzzle that fall together very neatly to complete a clear message - Remove the four player restriction in the IPL.
First, individual cricketing talent exists - talent that would add great value to the game - in the fringe cricketing countries (Brandon Taylor, Boyd Rankin and so many more). Such talent seldom gets the opportunity to come anywhere close to realizing its potential because of the fact that it hails from a weak, or a part-time cricketing nation.
Next, T20, we have all said and agreed, is a great way to expand the game past its 9-10 country base and get global. The IPL is a very good ticket to do that. A good way to get people in a country to play a particular sport is to allow them to make a decent living off it. If you love something, and you can carve 'the good life' off it, you can continue loving it without worrying about 'But where is this going?'. The IPL offers you a chance to not just make a living but a small fortune, giving that you'll be earning whatever you'll earn for 2 months work. In addition it will benefit the player, and therefore his country, when he gets the experience of participating in a highly competitive level of the sport, and mixes with all the big boys.
Audiences in these countries, over the years, will start getting more seriously attuned to watching the sport to see the local boys, which will widen the IPL's base. The flip side of this is that new audiences to the game will be introduced to the concepts of DLF maximums and Citi Moments of Success rather than sixes and wickets, but, well...
All of this, now, can only happen if a team owner knows he can play any hidden gems he discovers in the XI, and doesn't have to do an Ashraful or a Mortaza. Which, in turn, can only happen if a team is allowed to play five to six foreign cricketers in each side.
Curiously enough, doing this will help Indian cricket more than hinder it.
As long as there is a ceiling on how much each team can spend, worries about the influx of foreign players flooding the league and denying Indian cricketers from catchment areas adequate opportunities will remain misplaced. If anything, it will improve the quality of the Indian youngsters coming in because they will now be competing on a level playing field with talent from abroad. There are plenty of teams out there in the IPL- the Kolkata KnightRiders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, for instance - with players who wouldn't make it to a purely-on-merit best XI from their squad, who are there only because you have to have seven Indians. There won't be any soft, reserved spots available and so, only the best from the Indian circuit will come through. Besides, it is almost inevitable that not too far in the future, there will be more teams added to the existing eight, and therefore, local players will have more 'vacancies' to ply their trade in.
Creating a 'purely-on-merit' (or at least, a mostly-on-merit) set up will also help the IPL in that it will improve the standard of the league. None of Kolkata's big foreign guns are close to having to wear embarassingly coloured caps, but it is clear that the key reason why they have just one win in 10 games is because their local, Indian talent (outside of Ganguly and perhaps, Agarkar) just hasn't delivered anything not resembling a turkey, which is also the case with both the Royals - Bangalore and Rajasthan, despite the odd gem Warne has unearthed. If a team can put out its best XI players each time -or as close to it as possible - without worrying about a quota system you would have better cricket. 'Better cricket', and I hope this is still true, is the seed from which springs everything else - opportunities to learn and grow for younger players - Indian and otherwise, a richer viewing experience and yes, Mr. Modi, more money.
All said, there seem to be enough arguments to support the one sensible thing Buchanan has said in the middle of a lot of hare-brainedness - increase the number of foreign players from four to five or six. We should still be on the right side of the fine line where there are more benefits than suspected losses.
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Points Table
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Teams
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M
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W
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NRR
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Pts
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| DD |
14
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10
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0.30
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20
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CSK
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14
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8
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0.94
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16
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BRC
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14
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8
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-0.19
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16
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DC
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14
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7
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0.20
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14
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( Click here for complete table)
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