IT is hugely regrettable that India, which has created the tremendous sporting spectacle of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is unable to host the event as planned, because of the forthcoming election, but it is entirely appropriate that the tournament has been moved to South Africa, as announced last night.
Twenty20 cricket has revolutionized the game. The injection of major sums of money into the sport by largely Indian investors has guaranteed that the 59-match, five-week competition attracts the world’s very top players. The arrival of big money of course brings with it all the risks that now plague other major sports like football. But hopefully cricket is too sophisticated and complex a sport to fall easy prey to the deplorable excesses of both players and spectators which now bedevil football.
It is, however clear, whatever the IPL backers may say to the contrary, that the five-day Test game, the cornerstone on which cricket was built, is now in jeopardy. It is not that Test matches will not still be held for the foreseeable future, but that over time, the greater demands of the 20-over game, will produce an entirely different style of cricket among players, completely unsuited to the five-day game.
For the present though, the South Africans are rightly proud that they have been chosen to host the IPL across six venues, beginning just one week later than scheduled. It will certainly be an organizational challenge of the first order to put everything in place. However, the South African sporting authorities are fortunate in that they can probably draw upon part of the organization that is currently preparing the country to host the 2010 football World Cup. A few weeks out of their schedule working on the unexpected cricket tournament should not throw them behind. Indeed, the Indian Premier League will now serve as an outstanding opener for next year’s event.
The English cricket authorities believed two or three days ago that they were still likelier than South Africa to be chosen to host the tournament. There was a start to speculation over how the expected financial windfall would be spent, while the inevitable few pessimists immediately stepped forward to say that the organization could never be put in place on time. In the end what very probably decided the IPL to go with South Africa was the readiness of the pitches, at the end of a busy cricket season. Most English pitches are still in the early stages of preparation for a season that has yet to open — the MCC play Durham on April 9 and will play very differently from those expected in India and waiting in South Africa.
There was perhaps also an unspoken reason for the IPL’s choice. The English and Welsh cricket authorities were long hostile to the IPL and clearly still resent the movement of the game’s heart to India. Most significantly, the MCC originally refused to release contracted England players to participate in the IPL. The English game is therefore now paying the price for their standoffishness.
Israeli atrocities in Gaza warrant action
FOLLOWING the shocking testimonies of Israeli soldiers that they killed Palestinians in cold blood during the operation in Gaza, calls for a UN inquiry are mounting. The Guardian in its editorial yesterday cited reasons why an inquiry should be launched. Excerpts:
Evidence that Israel committed war crimes in its operation in Gaza mounts by the week. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have both appealed for a United Nations inquiry, after conducting their own investigations. Last week, Ha'aretz published the testimonies of Israeli soldiers who alleged that a sniper shot a Palestinian mother and her two children, and that a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be killed.
Israel has not got a history of cooperating with international inquiries into the actions of its army, but it has reacted twice to domestic allegations. It admitted that one of its tanks fired two shells at the apartment of a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian doctor whose three daughters were killed and whose grief touched the nation, but it concluded that the action was “reasonable.” The Ha'aretz material prompted a criminal inquiry by the military advocate, and two unusual statements by the outgoing defense minister, Ehud Barak, and the chief of staff, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, each of whom praised the “moral” actions of the army. The prospects of a full international investigation of these allegations are mixed. The international criminal court has received more than 220 complaints from the Palestinian National Authority, the Arab League and the Palestinian justice minister. But whether the court has jurisdiction is another matter.
If the ICC route fails, there is always the UN, whose schools and stores found themselves in the line of fire. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will this week receive the results of a private board of inquiry. This is narrow in scope, only examining incidents at UN facilities. But what happened there was bad enough, including the use of white phosphorus shells.
