BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is a powerful entity I am given to understand. It is made powerful by the money it earns when millions of cricket crazy men (women and children) turn on their television sets.
(So if the Aussies dare to nudge back another BCCI chief, hell would have no fury like the Indian board)
BCCI hit on another golden goose with the brilliant (still not sure) concept of Twenty-Twenty matches that had even not-interested ones like me hooked.
Rewind back to 2008...
Twenty-Twenty cricket turned out to be as much of a potboiler as a game.
Like following the antics of Big Boss inmates, one watched with curiosity if sparks flied between Ganguly and Ponting. The idea of national teams pitted against each other got messed up totally. I was glued at times not to the game but facial expressions and body languages of Dhoni, Harbhajan and Sehwag who sweated it out like warring family members in an Ekta Kapoor serial. Sreesanth and Harbhajan added chutzpah to the gentlemen’s game. For all his on-field bashing of Indian batsmen, one could not but fall for Shane Warne. My heart went all out to Adam Gilchrist as Deccan Chargers kept on losing.
Fast forward to 2009...
IPL has been shifted to South Africa. Its coincidence with general elections in India has heightened the security threat perception. Following the Mumbai attacks and SriLankan cricket team’s tryst with death in Pakistan, few would be willing to take chances. And why not?
If India’s past records are anything to go by, it is clear that security and intelligence agencies despite all their love for the nation, fail when it comes to detecting young men in jeans and t-shirts running across city roads with kilos of ammunition in their backpacks.
Mumbai attacks are nearly passe. Except Kasab and dangling proof at Pakistan, the Indian government has not delivered much in terms of answers, counter-action and preemption measures. Atleast that is what a laywoman like me thinks.
Two key improvisations were expected in the modus operandi of India’s security forces after they were caught unawares in Kargil and Mumbai. Training in high mountain counter-insurgency operations was realised to be essential for the Indian army after Kargil. (I recently read on a blog that terrorists/insurgents in Kashmir have better night vision gear that the Indian soldiers)
Mumbai attacks bared the need for better training and coordination among paramilitary forces responsible for internal security. (Did you read about the Kashmir police under cover cop who was arrested for supplying sim cards used by the gunmen in Mumbai? It was a blunder that blew off months of hard work by the Kashmir police to infiltrate a militant group)
Coming back to the IPL, many of my brethren and behens back home are losing sleep over why the event has been shifted out of the country. The issue almost snowballed into a political seesaw between the two bigwigs of Indian politics.
Though Lalit Modi may seem to be on a personal vendetta, his decision appears to be wise. If a single bullet is fired or a noise heard during any of the matches, foreign cricketers will pack off immediately. India will be branded as dangerous and cricket teams would tick off South Asia from their itineraries for a long time.
Could the BCCI afford this?
In India, terrorism and terrorists have become as ‘every-day’ as robberies, murders and kaccha-baniyan groups in smaller cities.
You may not die of cancer or be hit by a car but you might step on a listless tiffin box and be blown to so many pieces that your family may only manage to find your little finger to cremate.
Few years ago, on the day when a bomb exploded in the Sarojini Nagar market in New Delhi, I happened to have deferred my morning visit to the market and decided to go in the evening instead. I have had brushes with death but then I could see it coming and sparing me by millimetres and degrees. But being blown off in the middle of a sentence, a transaction or while gulping down a puchka?
If a country cannot handle two mega events simultaneously (I wonder how will they ever bid for the Olympics) it is good that IPL moves to foreign shores. It spares all of us some more anxiety, fear and grief.
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