To play for country or self,as IPL T20 cash boom comes up?

By Srian OBEYESEKERE

CRICKET: Cricket... cricket... It all starts with the starry- eyed. From a bat and ball or whatever improvisation at softball cricket in their home backyards or park, to traversing to their teens when next it is aspiring to make the college grade. Then it becomes one scramble to get into the college first eleven team. And the sky is the limit!

Indeed, playing cricket is the password for blokes in the prime of their youth who find the school periphery the gateway to realising the wild dream of becoming a cricketer. From the grind of playing college cricket to graduating to club level, is the buzzing whirl between studies and then employment as they grow up with cricket in their nostrils.

The playing field - its 22-yard pitch, the surroundings of which is greenly enriched by grass; a virtual teething paradise as aspiring cricketers live their early days in the toil under sun and rain; some endowed with the means to afford buying for themselves a cricket bat and pair of boots and ball which don’t come easy unless one has the financial means which some - particularly the rural youth from middle income families whose dream is to flaunt their talents and go places. But who can ill afford the money to deck themselves with the wherewithall that completes a cricketer’s armoury?

Yes, going through the mill and coming out on tops is the dream world of both the rich and poor youth alike who today find in cricket a future where they could earn a fortune to set them up for life.

It’s no secret that a cricketer today could stake his life career on cricket alone without any white collar or other modes of employment. A fact that is the envy of a majority of others who depend on their jobs to support themselves and their families, particularly here in Sri Lanka.

But that is the way of world cricket. Who can deny them what they reap for ability they and only they can showcase in a fiercely professional field. That is the wheel of fortune from bat versus ball contest that has come to spin full circle bathed in a wand of proportionately huge greenbacks as against a once different past when the lot of a cricketer was quite different then. So then, who can envy modern day cricketers knowing that today the game has not only advanced in leaps and bounds in terms of playing standards, but also in terms of its commercial dressing where today cricket has enriched itself as a pastime where money is pumped into the game in a windfall, thanks to the advent of the television moghuls and sponsors who also find it a thriving business to gamble their greenbacks on.

Lankans already committed

To say that it is in such a background from which we in Sri Lanka find ourselves looking at the current impasse facing the Mahela Jayawardene led Sri Lanka IPL players, who amount to more than a handful considering the cream of our cricket who have reportedly committed themselves to the billion dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) and the local administrative arm - Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). That it’s very controversy revolves around the IPL where its next fixture for its Sri Lankan IPL players early next year happens to clash with an intended Sri Lanka tour to England around the same time in April-May which SLC Interim Committee Chairman Arjuna Ranatunga is adamant must be honoured, come what may, threatens the very existence of the country’s cricket is no understatement.

What with the cricketers threatening retirement if their wish to honour their contract with the IPL is not permitted by SLC. to which the equally adamant stance adopted by Ranatunga, a former iron man of cricket, who no one can deny to whom this country owes a great lot for what our cricket is today, is that a handful of players cannot dictate terms and that the England tour must be honoured. For, country comes first.

In this running row which has caused much comments from so many quarters, where almost roundly the sympathy of the local media has stayed with the cricketers, to be honest, there are two ways of looking at it. From one side, the players are looking perhaps not only at the monetary windfall coming their way, but also at the prospect of playing in an extravaganza local as it may be - imported players, have to represent Indian domestic clubs run by billionaires mainly from the Hindi film industry including heartthrob Sharukh Khan - where the best in the world assemble to showcase their talents.

Having said that, the IPL is also a window for even the lesser known, still striving to make a name for himself to not only play first hand and impress and seal a future with his country - the best example from that is that of young Shaun Marsh who made the inaugural IPL the platform to walk into the Australian team, but also earn a fortune.

In that scenario certainly, the IPL has from its very infancy worked itself up to be the high noon of world cricket, judging by the tremendous attraction it has generated. Not only contemporary leading players from almost every cricket playing country have raised their hands to play in the IPL, but even retired players like Australians Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, Stephen Flemming from New Zealand and Shaun Pollock from South Africa among others have joined the parade.

Hearts would bleed

So, if one were to look at the impasse back home from a truly cricketing perspective, that where the action is, the draw is then, of course, hearts would bleed for Jayawardene and company that also includes his deputy Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Farveez Maharoof, Dilhara Fernando, Tillekeratne Dilshan, and new ‘wonderboy’ Ajantha Mendis along with some lesser mortals like Upul Tharanga among others also forming the party.

On the other hand, looking at the Ranatunga perspective as a management man perhaps one cannot fault the man for insisting that a tour obligation such as with England be honoured. even though it happened to be something that suddenly emerged where Sri Lanka as it is had to fill in the void of Zimbabwe who were chucked out by the ECB from England’s original tour schedule in protest over the Zimbabwean government’s political doings.

Ranatunga’s position is that country comes first and that the players are bound by this national obligation. Certainly a very valid point. He holds that the IPL is only a private tour for which SLC has no contractual obligations to honour with Jayawardene and company. To look at it from a management perspective, Ranatunga has a point where he insists that playing for one’s country has been ‘the’ thing over the years.

In the raging deadlock, the Sunday Observer sought the views of a Cross-Section of cricket enthusiasts:

Nuski Mohamed, a former Secretary of the then cricket board, was of the view that importantly, the England tour was a cream tour.

“For me, the England tour is priceless. The England tour is a national one and it is all about the future of Sri Lanka cricket. The IPL is for individuals. Mind you, we get very few Test matches from England. When I was Secretary of the board, we just got the odd one Test match. In that light, we have to grab an opportunity where we are getting two Tests and three one-dayers.

Having said that, I cannot say that the players had erred because at the time they signed up for the next IPL tournament, it was with the knowledge of the board because Sri Lanka had no tour obligation at the time which is what led them to agree to play in the IPL, commented Mohamed who was Secretary during a turning point of Lankan cricket when the country gained Test status in 1981 during the tenure of the late Minister Gamini Dissanayake as president of the cricket board.

He however, stressed that the best solution was for SLC to try and sort out the issue so that both itineraries could be accommodated.

Ivor Keerthipala, an avid follower of cricket, was of the strong view that the players, who were professionals, instead of being respected for that were being victimised by SLC which it seemed lacked the skills to handle the situation.

There should be a way out without England dictating to us where if necessary the ODIs could be scrapped and the Tests played. “I feel that this is a storm in a tea cup. Mahela in fact is a chip of the old block when Ranatunga stood up for players rights and all what the present Sri Lanka captain is doing is exactly what Ranatunga did when he was captain - standing up for his players rights.

The players need to be protected and not ruined. They are being treated like schoolboys and not professionals.

They are in the prime of their careers and there because they have performed and they are being made use of because of their talents which they have earned the hard way and not arrived there through favours. We take 5 to 6 years to create a Mahela and then act as if they don’t exist. You can’t arbitrarily ruin careers”.

If you are going to show them the door, you don’t need administrators. A tendency today is that people in authority act as if the players are inferior. There has to be a win-win situation,” Keerthipala said and went on to note that ‘everyone was saying that the advent of the IPL was the future of cricket and therefore the players could not be blamed.’

“Furthermore, Sri Lanka cannot forget that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could take an adverse view of Sri Lanka if the players were blocked. If we stop the players going to India what if the BCCI retaliates? SLC must understand that the Indian board is hundred per cent behind this (IPL) tournament. When India has stood by us this is not the time to undermine their tournament,” Keerthipala added.

A Colombo cricket club official, who wished to be anonymous, was of the candid view that the players were right, because they had signed with IPL only because there was no tour on then. The England tour had materialised after that.”

A former Sri Lanka player who wished to stay anonymous, however strongly felt that primarily country came first before self.

“The players’ obligation is to Sri Lanka and not private tours.”

Another fan Ashton Wickramasinghe from Attidiya, Dehiwela also felt that the players should forfeit money to play for their country.

But another avid fan of the game Ananda de Silva from Kohuwala: was of the view that the ‘IPL is where the heart of cricket is now’, and that the SL players should be given the “greenlight” to compete where the glamour was.

So, the inevitable question is: “could or should the players concerned forfeit playing in what has come to be the carnival of cricket - the IPL? Representing a domestic club and the big dollars coming their way - or should they put country before self and go ahead and tour England where Ranatunga further believes playing at Lord’s should be the dream of any aspiring cricketer as it was with him in his hey day?

In touching on the issue, one cannot forget that in fact Jayawardene had made no bones about it that Test cricket should survive all other cricket with just one Twenty-20 tourney annually, in an interview with the ‘Wisden’ during his trip to the ICC Awards in Dubai recently, and that he and his IPL players, who receive hardly what other countries pay their players from tours, would forget the IPL if they were paid that much of money for the England tour.

Of course, the only answer to both questions would be shifting the England tour so it would not clash with the IPL. But that does not look an easy prospect, considering the fact that the next England vs. Australia Ashes series is scheduled to come up soon after could be an obstacle. But, if one were to consider the position modern players enjoy today, where they fight for their rights, thanks to players’ unions which Jayawardene and company are represented here, it seems in reality they enjoy a huge voice on the matter.

Factually, the bottom line is that the game has been modernised by the dominant commercial arm that also dictates the running of cricket unlike the good old past.

There were the famous ‘rags to riches’ stories of names like Sir Garfield Sobers and the late Sir Frank Worrell, among others who did not arrive overnight unlike today where a tournament like the IPL sets up a barely known player for life.

But then, who said that was a different past? Hasn’t the game moved and moved in a long journey that has seen the game become a gold mine, ever since Australian business tycoon the late Kerry Packer revolutionised cricket by ushering in breakaway one-day cricket with players garbed in cowboy-like coloured clothing under floodlights.

So, who is going to let off a pound of flesh? The players or SLC?

Let cricket be the winner. Be it as it may, the current deadlock continues and certainly looks like posing a big question to the keepers of the game - the ICC where it might have to consider accommodating the IPL or whatever other Twenty-20s that are going to fan cricket in its annual calendar, so as not to impede its country to country tour obligations.

So who knows? The IPL could well be the next tryst cricket’s establishments could well face after Kerry Packer where giving in to the complex question of accommodating the IPL fixtures in its annual calendar might well be the next proposition the world governing arm - the ICC could be looking at.

The obvious of the obvious is that old values have given way to the new - of money and prestige’.

Haven’t we afterall, having seen the pomp and craze that has robed Twenty 20 in a wholly new shift?

So the starry eyed, as you queue up at your college grounds today, your dream world could well be spinning towards an altogether new horizon.