BOMBAY, 24 January 2003 — Almost every one of the fourteen participating countries have, each in their own way, prepared with great hope for the World Cup of cricket now just a fortnight away. The only people who can be said to have taken things rather lightly are those who are running the show, the organizers and the apex body, the International Cricket Council.

By now, everything ought to have been all cut and dried and nicely laid out. But unfortunately, there are too many loose ends that need to be tied and quite a few rough creases that are yet to be ironed out.

The players‚ contract issue is far from resolved, what with the Indian players as good as re-writing the final draft of the agreement, by rejecting two major proviso injected into the contract by the major sponsors. The other team, Sri Lanka has already overshot the final deadline by more than a week and the players are sticking to their guns of not signing the contract unless their payment is jacked up considerably.

Of the subcontinental teams, all three of them previous World Cup winners, only Pakistan has complied with the signing business without any hitch. Instead of demanding higher payments, their players are being motivated by a big windfall that has been promised to each player on winning the Cup. If they are successful, as they were in 1992, each Pakistani player stands to gain a bonus of RS65 lakhs from the Board alone. What the government and the big corporate companies will provide is besides all this.

The ICC’s worries have increased as they have been dragged to court by former triumphant Indian World Cup captain Kapil Dev, former selector Madan Lal and former BCCI President N.K.P. Salve, with several others.

Besides the ICC and the BCCI, the plaintiffs have dragged all the major World Cup sponsors as respondents to the suit filed by Kapil & Co. seeking equitable and fair settlement of the players contract dispute.

Kapil Dev and others have also implored the Indian Union Government to act against the sponsors, who are based in India, for any illegal use of foreign exchange indulged by them by taking away more than 80 percent of their estimated income from India.

What the outcome of this unique court case will be, it is difficult to hazard a guess. But the fact remains that the ICC will be engaged in a dispute that could well have been avoided.

A summary warning was served when the ICC Champions‚ Trophy was held in Sri Lanka in September last. The ICC even set up a special Contract Committee to go into the whole matter and re-draft the players‚ contract. But, with their major sponsors standing steadfast to their own ideas and demands of ambush marketing, the ICC could make little progress. They failed to realize the peculiar problems faced by the Indian players, who have signed a multiple endorsement contracts, some time ago.

Several sessions of talks with the Indian players and administrators did not bring any form of compromise and eventually, the Indian players signed the contract by deleting two major clauses that purport to enforce ambush marketing. The players are unwilling to give up their own property rights.

The ICC has not accepted these signed contracts forwarded to them by the BCCI. Meanwhile, they have been dragged in a legal battle. Already three major sponsors, based in India, are agreeable to foregoing the marketing ambush clauses. But the others are as adamant as before. Time is running out and ICC will be in a quandary over taking any drastic action against the Indian players.

The crisis hitting Sri Lanka cricket is of a different nature. Actually, it is an internal matter. The Sri Lanka players have been demanding 20 percent of the cricket board’s guaranteed fee of $6.4 million from the World Cup.

The cricket board has said it cannot afford more than 10 percent, plus an incentive fee without jeopardizing the development of younger players.

Now, the problem can only be sorted out when the Lanka team returns home. That decision will leave the board in a state of flux. If the players are reluctant to climb down on their original demand, then we might well see a second string Lanka side playing in South Africa.

On present rating, Pakistan have the best chance amongst the Asian countries. But both India and Sri Lanka are a major draw. You just cannot think of the World without the best players from the sub-continent. Only a spirit of give-and-take on all sides can make this, the biggest World Cup, a spectacle the kind of which cricket has never seen before.