BCCI has a great thing going on right now. Match winners all over the team, number one test ranking, world’s greatest batsman in the side, one of the finest, if not the best, Captain, and now a World Champion one-day team.
And yet, they continue to put in the relentless effort to destroy it all.
It is sickening to see Indian cricketers perhaps being the most outrageously overworked employees in the world. Every conversation in this regard is quickly dismissed with one of two counterpoints: one, they are also the most highly paid athletes, and two, nobody is forcing them to play other league cricket. And I will be hard pressed to pick the more ridiculous statements between these two. Paying millions doesn't mean that the whole concept of workload goes out the window, and as custodians of the game, BCCI can't create sponsored leagues and sit back to say they are not forcing anyone to join. That BCCI power has been grossly abused with IPL is the biggest understatement of all time.
India had a great world cup, and it really isn't so hard to understand how emotionally and physically fatigued this team must be. Heck, I'm completely drained just by watching it on TV. I'm ready for a vacation, to soak it all in, bask in the glory and just recharge a tad. Well, no such luxury for our boys in blue. They barely get a couple days with families at home, if that, before trooping back to their base camps for our celebrated IPL, whose creation itself was borne out of revenge and not from a vision for developing the sport.
To further drive my point home, we can look at the Indian team roster for last 24 months. The World Cup was the first time when we played at full strength in forever, and that needed some pretty long-term planning. Our injury lists are ever growing, with more players going through surgeries and cricket-less recoveries every year. Between long-out-of-touch rehab periods they are simply losing time that can't be bought back with the BCCI billions. Their schedule is simply exacerbating these problems to new heights.
It reminds me of the children’s story about the hen and golden eggs, the one that apparently should be required-reading for all BCCI officials. It doesn't take a genius to see that instead of being nurtured for long lasting glory, the hen is being beaten to death with a sledgehammer.
It also pains me to think about the quality of cricket that athletes (both Indian and otherwise) will be able to produce on the back of a long World Cup. Would that even be fair to fans, let alone these cricketers?
BCCI has got to take a serious look at the schedule of this Indian cricket team and understand the whole concept of work-life balance. This unreal greed for money, milking Indian Cricket for every penny that it is worth, all that is already unbefitting of a non-profit organization, is simply undermining BCCI’s primary function of being custodians of the game of Cricket in India, and catalysts for its development.
Moving IPL to be a bi-annual tournament might go a long way in solving these issues. Not only would it keep Cricket fresh for audiences, it would also provide a realistic opportunity to get ICC’s nod for a calendar spot which would do wonders for the tournament and all Cricket boards.
Someone has got to ask the question, How much is too much?
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