Until the summer of 2008, yellow was the colour of trepidation for Indian fans. It was the colour that reminded them of the mighty Australian cricket team which, on several occasions, ruthlessly crushed their hopes by giving a sound beating to their heroes in blue jersey.
Then came Chennai Super Kings. The IPl franchise, led by Captain Cool MS Dhoni, wrapped its bunch of superstars from around the cricket world in yellow. Soon, not only the trepidation was gone, Dhoni and Co made the Indian cricket fans fall in love with yellow.
At the same time, in a different part of the country, a different franchise was redefining the blue. Though it wasn’t the same blue as that of the Indian team’s, Rajasthan Royals added their own cool quotient to the colour.
If Chennai gave Dhoni a cricketing home away from home, Jaipur provided Australian legend Shane Warne a second fling with fame. Warne, too, worked his magic and pulled off a heist with a motley crew attired in blue when Rajasthan Royals deprived the marauding yellow brigade (from Chennai, not Australia!) from becoming the inaugural champions.
As the IPl extravaganza grew stronger and stronger with every passing season, the two teams, for entirely different reasons, emerged as its biggest ambassadors. While the star-studded Super Kings left the IPl fans in awe with their consistency of reaching the finals — they played in six of the eight finals — the Royals astonished them with their logic-defying, punching-above-the-weight performances, season after season.
In the eight editions so far, many other teams laid their hands on the trophy but these two teams remained the most celebrated ones — Super Kings for its aura and Royals for its ability to script fairytales. And despite their contrasting cricketing ideologies, Super Kings and Royals were the defining standards of brilliance.
It is rather unfortunate that they have been forced to make disgraceful exit due to the nefarious off-field activities of their owners. Their exit is sure to leave a big void in the IPl.
What nextIJ
On July 14, when former Chief Justice of India Rajendra Mal lodha, along with his two colleagues Ashok Bhan and R V Raveendran, was settling in his chair in a conference hall at the Indian Habitat Centre to pronounce the terms of punishment, it was not only India Cements and Jaipur IPl — owners of CSK and RR — who were holding their breath. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the other six franchises were equally worried. For, the future of the Indian Premier league (IPl), the money making machine, hugely depended on the decision.
Outside, and for a long time, there was a prevailing cynicism that in the harshest of the punishments, the two teams would be heavily fined and it would bring the case to closure. No one had ever imagined that the lodha committee would suspend India Cements and Jaipur IPl for a period of two years from fielding their teams in the IPl.
It was completely out of the blue and left both the BCCI and the franchises in a state of shock. It was followed by numerous informal meetings between the shareholders and an army of lawyers to understand the ramifications of the verdict. An IPl Governing Council (GC) meeting has been convened for Sunday (today).
The BCCI has already asserted that it wants to keep the IPl an eight-team affair and six-team tournament isn’t an option.
“We’re always concerned about IPl and let me assure you the next edition will be a bigger success. IPl is a robust product and this judgment (suspension of teams) shouldn’t affect IPl as a product. The idea is to have the tournament in full format with a minimum of eight teams. We can’t hold the event with six teams,” IPl GC chairman Rajiv Shukla had said after a meeting with BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya in Kolkata earlier this week.
One of the key issues that they will discuss is what to do with the two franchises. There are a couple of options before the GC.
BCCI might decide to take the suspended franchises under its wings and run them for two years. And, when the suspension period is over, they can be handed back to the original owners. It would help the IPl retain two of its most popular franchises in the competition.
‘It’s surely an option that they have,” a former IPl GC member said. “But it will be difficult to have all the members on the same page. The biggest concern is whether it will attract any legal trouble for the board. The BCCI is talking to its lawyers and a decision will be taken in the Governing Council meeting on Sunday.”
If the BCCI does that, it will have to bear the financial burden too that may roughly to go up to `250 crores a year.
“If BCCI goes with this option, I don’t think money would be a problem. After all it is the richest (cricket) board in the world. And they have the bank guarantees of the two teams. They can use that if need be,” he added.
Another option is replacing Super Kings and Royals with two new franchises, who can retain the present roster, like they did with Deccan Chargers — who were replaced by Sunrisers Hyderabad. It would mean all the other six franchises will show up for IPl 9 in the same form and shape as they did in the previous season.
“The question here is who would want to buy a tainted teamIJ Not many. let’s suppose someone is ready, will the two suspended franchises sell their teamsIJ Because they have an option to come back after serving two years of suspension. So, there are several question marks,” a source who is a part of an IPl franchise said.
The other likely option for the BCCI is to invite fresh bids for two new franchises and put all the players of the suspended franchises in the auction pool. This would create a pandemonium as some of the most sought after names, including Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane and Steve Smith, would be up for grabs.
“It will make the situation tricky for everyone. All the other franchises will be tempted to release a lot of their players and go into the auction with a loaded purse to try and get a Dhoni, Bravo, Smith or Rahane for themselves,” he said.
Having said that, what will happen to CSK and RR when they become eligible to take part in the IPl again in 2018IJ Will the IPl be a 10-team affairIJ Where will CSK and RR get players from as most of the top class players would have been sold out in 2017 auctions for two yearsIJ
The questions are aplenty and so does the problems. The biggest and most powerful cricket board is in deep trouble. The board that is in the habit of dictating terms, is now scrambling to find options. And all this is because of one man.
Not Gurunath Meiyappan, a CSK official who has been banned for life for placing bets on IPl matches. Not Raj Kundra, a minority stake holder in Royals who has also been banned for life for placing bets on IPl matches. And not even N Srinivasan, former BCCI president accused of conflict of interest. But a relatively unknown man, Aditya Verma, the secretary of the unrecognized Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB).
The trigger man
The fight started in 2006 when Verma first approached the BCCI for full-member status of Bihar. Though he wasn’t himself the undisputed representative of the state’s cricket — two other associations had laid their claims to such status — he was certainly the most active and willing to fight till the end.
Back then nobody in the BCCI had paid him much attention. For, he was deemed too trivial. A decade later, Verma is the face of the legal battle that has brought the mighty BCCI to its knees. Today, the BCCI must be thinking how good it would have been had they settled the issue back then. How much they would love to sit down with him and set everything straight now.
“I started this fight for the cricketers of Bihar. Bihar was an affiliated unit of the BCCI since 1935 but when Jharkhand came into existence, Amitabh Choudhary (an officer in the Indian Police Service and currently BCCI joint secretary) fraudulently usurped Bihar’s recognition,” Verma alleged.
“My fight began in 2006 and during my fight when I came across rampant corruption in the board, I decided to take them head on.
“It was long battle and the children of Bihar, who were being deprived of their birth right to have equal opportunity to play cricket for the Indian team, gave me strength. I was also a cricketer. I could understand their pain,” he added.
But the fight isn’t yet over for Verma. As much as he is delighted after the lodha Committee’s verdict, he calls it the ‘part one’ suggesting that much more needs to be done to cleanse the cricket administration in the country.
“I salute the verdict. What can be better news for any cricket lover than the Supreme Court deciding to get pro-active in cleaning up the BCCI,” he said.
“However, it was just part one. Now we have to go to part two where the honorable Supreme Court will pronounce its decision on Sunder Raman (chief operating official of the IPl). Then, in part three, there is a matter of restructuring of the BCCI, conflict of interest, state cricket associations etc. So the process has begun. And if the beginning is so great, hopefully the end will be even better.”