I hate cricket. And this post isn’t about the game. And I didn’t read Amit Varma’s dull piece on accountability in the IPL in full. Except,
Rohit Mahajan of Outlook quoted a Delhi Daredevils players as saying: “[T]hese corporate people attend meetings, and fools among them even try to tell players and coaches how to play.” Sharda Ugra of India Today quoted an India player as saying: “The franchises are being obnoxious. We wouldn’t dream of telling them how to run their businesses. The last thing you need is them telling you how to play cricket.”
The player has no right to complain. Not all natural concomitances of pimping auctioning yourself are pleasant. Fundamentally, you lose your right to complain. In older times, there was a rather crude word to define this. Slavery.
4 Comments
Sandeep
This is an unwanted rant, and it makes you sound like a bindi-jhola communist, which i know (think?) you’re not.
Their paymasters are simply asking for performance, its just that the Tendulkars of the world — who are used to being treated as Gods — are suddenly seeing the reality of “pay for performance” which you and i live with.
Don’t you, as a bill payer tell your mechanic how to repair yor car? Or your tailor how to stitch your shirt? Or, these days, even your doctor on how to take care of you?
None of these knaves (not naives) have been held to gunpoint while being signed up for millions. Comparing it with slavery is plain wrong.
Whatever your feelings about cricket, its a welcome development.
AG,
It was a rant. Period. And I know that’s how it works. Peace.
Sandeep,
There’s nothing wrong in either owned teams or owners asking their players to perform. That’s what makes sport more interesting. As long as cricket used to be a political committee run sport with rich kids bribing their way into the team no one bothered whether we lost or won. Look at a fat punk like PR Das Munshi running the Indian Football Association or an dumb oaf like Sharad Pawar sitting astride BCCI. The sort of sporting savvy that the US athletic leagues possess particularly the NFL and the Football Clubs of Europe ensures that coaching, playing, managing are all well run. In the US of course even third tier teams like the NBA’s LA Clippers or the New Orleans Hornets (and the soon to be Oklahoma Sonics) draw crowds. The Pittsburgh Steelers one of the world’s best run and iconic franchises went 25 years without a playoff appearance. General businessmen can’t run teams like that, you need specialist businessmen who do nothing else. Mallya, SRK, and others may soon drop out of this business leaving the field to less affluent but more committed and savvy sports owners. It will be a good thing for all.
“u don’t like cricket. u love it.”