It really is Anne Robinson time. Who is the bully in the schoolyard? Who is the king of the walk? Who is the heavyweight at the party? Who thinks he can take away his bat and ball unless everyone plays by his rules? Who is the strongest link even if he got all the answers wrong?
The BCCI and no cigars for that one.
Incredible how the others simply surrendered to the pressure from this unholy trinity spearheaded by India and backed by England and Australia to create a royal box in the cricket pyramid and become the 21st century version of the Roman triumvirate. Pakistan, India’s historical adversary, also capitulated and Zaka Ashra, Chairman of the PCB paid the price within hours being sacked by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for ostensibly not showing enough resistance to the Indian led takeover.
Zaka is clearly the fall guy in this face saving exercise. He had only two choices, yes or no. If he had said no an already isolated Pakistan would have been sent far deeper into cricket’s Coventry than even Kevin Pietersen. The man had no choice but to abstain and let the ball pass him by.
And any superficially cogent argument (there are scores of theories written up by tame journalists on how this is all good for cricket) whether predicated to financials, realities on the ground or so called fairness cannot counter two facts. One, the divide has been created and the rest are just that, the rest.
Two, the ICC has almost become redundant as a body. What role can it possibly have in circumstances that have brought into play a new and autocratic command. India never listened to that lot anyway. You may recall the arrogance of the BCCI holding a gun to the South Africans insisting on the dismissal of their Board’s chief Haroon Logart if they wanted the Indians over. And they got it. In my book the ICC has been dramatically marginalized and now cricket has the royals, the full (?) members, associates and affiliates and India has 80% of the revenue. That’s an even playing field for you.
From the frost of cricket to the freeze in organization at Sochi.
In fact, so many glitches occurred and are still occurring that even the terrorism threat faded into the background. Perhaps the terrorists suddenly felt embarrassed taking on the mess things were in ten minutes into the opening day. Brown water from the taps, toilets that don’t work, dangerous slopes, fractured shoulders from unprepared runs, jammed doors, broken knobs, notices requesting toilet paper be thrown in the bin not flushed, falling light fixtures, a string of firecracker goof ups formed a social media stampede started by an unknown Canadian journalism student Alex Broad who has got more publicity than any of the medal winners.
All he did was tweet about it and he has become the most famous name at the games. Even the participants are feeling left out as the media frenzy concentrates on the fifth ring of fire that failed to ignite, on their own poor living conditions and it is not for nothing that the winter games are being called the “whinging” games.
These things happen but a hostile media and amateur bloggers and tweeters have shown their muscle and it is overwhelming. The monster now has to be fed with more grist everyday. And if you can’t find something wrong, write it up anyway, that’s what is selling.
Against this background could things get worse? They did. The athlete who lit the Olympic flame, Irina Rodnina, also known as the Russian Olympic legend tweeted a picture of President Obama staring at a banana back in September.
Who cares who won the slalom?
In true tradition of contrite sportspersons whose PR machine has stayed up all night fine tuning their statement she came up with a spoonful of vanilla: “I respect the Obama family and apologize for not clearly stating earlier that I don’t support the tweeted photo or racism in any form.”
Yes, but you sent it girl. Talk about slip ups.
