The BCCI may have left Sri Lanka Cricket hanging on a cliff. Bereft of funds following the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, they are now struggling to get SLPL off the ground without an Indian broadcaster or Indian cricketers.
Nishantha Ranatunge of Sri Lankan cricket
The Sri Lankan cricket administration officials never arrived in India. Why? Although originally having planned to come to India to talk and convince the BCCI to release their players for the Sri Lankan Premier League, they dropped the idea after the general consensus was that the BCCI would not budge from its stance.
Even though the BCCI had earlier claimed to be engaging the idea of sending Indian cricketers for the SLPL, the BCCI changed its position after they suspected that Lalit Modi, the former IPL chairman and commissioner, was part of the private ownership of the league. Although the Sri Lanka Cricket administrators quickly responded by claiming that the SLC was behind the venture and that the ICC’s blessings were upon the league, the BCCI stuck to its decision from last week that the participation of Indian cricketers were out of the question.
The might and power of the BCCI may be evident but the opposition has also shown that the BCCI can be generous but only so long as they are convinced that those that they are colluding with do not pose a threat to their authority. The mere suspicion of the possible hand of Lalit Modi has been enough to BCCI make a quick about turn, leaving the Sri Lankan cricket board hanging out to dry. While Modi has certainly try to reap as much as mileage and publicity out of this whole situation that the BCCI can only blame themselves for, the Sri Lankan cricket administrators have realized the futility of their expedition, caught in the midst of a raging battle that has taken over a year and put cricket on the sidelines. With BCCI’s apprehensions deeper for the Sri Lankan cricket board to convincingly deny, there has been no new understanding or compromise on the subject.
Now even Sri Lankan cricket officials have realized that their efforts to convince the BCCI are essentially like banging their head on a brick wall and they saw trying to come to India and appeal to the BCCI as a waste of time. Sri Lankan cricket certainly expected more cordiality of the Indian cricket board after it has been releasing its cricketers for the IPL although the clash of the IPL 4 schedule with Sri Lanka’s tour of England led to much wrangling between the BCCI and the SLC, with the former eventually winning the battle to release the Sri Lankan cricketers at a later date.
However, for Sri Lankan cricket, the absence of the Indian cricketers has been a big blow because it now renders their Twenty20 tournament without their biggest asset, the Indian cricketers who could pull in the television viewership as well as the broadcaster to air the tournament live. With the finances of the board shipwrecked by over expenditure on the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, the Sri Lankan cricket has little choice but to go ahead with the tournament in the hope of staying afloat rather than let the entire tournament sink which is what the pullout of the Indian cricketers threatens to do.
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