It is now easy to understand why other sports and its practitioners get worked up about the coverage given to cricket in India. The tour to Pakistan has generated so much hype and has taken even the front pages of leading dailies as well as being the lead items on the news-channels of the electronic media.
The news most times has been of such trifling nature that it makes the reader wonder who let it in the pages in the first place. There have been stories of past battles being recounted which do not happen in other sports and definitely not to the extent that’s been happening in cricket.
Anybody who has played in even one of the Indo-Pak matches is asked to remember the match and either write about it or talk about it. Wherever one goes there is only one question, “What are the chances in Pakistan?”
No wonder, the players who are actually going there are now having a bored look on their faces as they anticipate an intelligent question, which is as rare as a hair on a baldpate.
There is a big Olympic qualifying tournament for Indian Hockey, but apart from one national newspaper which has actually sent a person to cover the tournament live, no other paper has thought it important enough to give it more coverage and that too in an Olympic year.
That India qualified has met with some back-page reporting and may be third item story after cricket and the premiership football in England. Why, even the domestic Duleep Trophy final is hardly covered and down South where I was for a few days, there was for four days, not even abbreviated scores of the finals. Maybe because it did not feature South zone in the finals. So, if one of the most competitive of cricket tournaments cannot find coverage, it’s hardly surprising that other sports do not get too much mention.
What was galling was that there was a report on the Waugh twins retirement from first-class cricket and the scores in that game, but not a line on the Duleep Trophy finals.
This total neglect is partly the fault of the BCCI which has neglected the domestic tournaments and is hardly bothered about what happens. The one plus was that most of the selectors were present at the Duleep finals but even they queried more about the Pakistan tour rather than on the finals.
In an earlier column by Dilip Vengsarkar, he had mentioned about how there was no trophy given to the limited-overs tournament for Ranji teams and how there was no prize money for it.
This is not the only example of neglect of domestic cricket but even at the start of the season with the Irani Trophy, the story was no different. Then, the superstars of Indian cricket played the tournament as well as the Challenger Trophy where India’s top 36 players play in a limited-overs tournament. Not only were there sponsors for these two events but big crowds as well, which showed that if the big stars play then there will be interest in the crowds as well to watch.
At the start of the season the BCCI had announced that it would give 26% of its revenue to the players and out of this 13% would be given to the international players and 11% to the domestic players and 2% to junior cricketers.
This is indeed laudable but as the season is nearing its end there is no real sign that the domestic cricketer has benefited.
Those who played in the Irani Trophy and the Challenger Trophy which was sponsored to the extent of Rs.2 1/2 crores got peanuts for their efforts.
But for the participation of star players, nobody would have come forward to sponsor the tournaments and that too for the amount they did.
Any filtering of the board’s revenue has to be totally transparent but it is not so. The limited-overs tournament for the Ranji teams was also sponsored but there was no trophy, no prize money and all the money has gone to BCCI.
Now that the ICC has cleared most of the guarantee money that they had held back from some of the teams that participated in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, the BCCI should be able to not only pay the players who played that tournament but also in other BCCI touring teams and events.
For years now the BCCI too has taken its time to play the players, especially the prize money and when it is paid late, there is no interest given to the players, even though the BCCI may be getting some for the time the money has been lying with them and may have even invested it short-term somewhere.
Of course all this will hardly matter, as all eyes will be fixed on what happens across the border in the next five weeks.
The Ranji semifinals of the Elite and Plate divisions will be played at the same time and the players will be lucky if they get their scores printed for there will be more coverage given to who was watching the series in Pakistan, who was wearing what and such stuff. Truly, Indian cricket means only international cricket and the domestic cricket participant is only a very very distant relation of the one who plays for the country.
Unless that gap is narrowed, Indian cricket will continue its inconsistent ways, throwing up the odd victory and odd superstar, and the euphoric feeling will make people forget that only by nurturing the grassroots will a magnificent tree grow.
