Mukul Kesavan articulated almost everything I have wanted to say about the way BCCI runs Indian cricket.  “Disneyfication” is an apt term to describe the whole process of monetization that’s been undertaken on steroids since the advent of Twenty20 and IPL, with “DLF Maximum” sixes, “Karbon Kamaal” catches and “Citi Moments of Success” (assuming that’s wickets), blonde cheerleaders, so on and so forth. Not that this is the first time money has determined how much cricket is played and in what formats. Test cricket, after all, has gotten step-motherly treatment ever since the World Cup victory of ’83 and the increased popularity of limited-overs cricket in the subcontinent since then. It is just that the degree of commercialism has skyrocketed ever since the administrators found that an even-shorter version of the game could be viably marketed to a wider audience, and greater profits could be raked in by having movie stars and glamorous business tycoons invest in such franchises.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, to quote a certain famous sitcom line.  To my mind, there’s no contemporary sport that doesn’t need to generate profits in order to sustain itself and flourish. Yet, what’s been a pet peeve of mine, and what Kesavan captures exquisitely in his piece, is the sheer crassness with which the BCCI has gone about its business, sacrificing the international cricket calendar and the well-being of players in the quest for reaching a broader audience.

Money quote:

Can you imagine Fifa placing its biggest bets on seven-a-side football? Or the USPGA hustling the Augusta National Golf Club into scrapping the Masters and replacing it with a six hole Pro-Am tournament, which then becomes the centre-piece of America’s golfing calendar? ……….. Of course you can’t. But you don’t have to stretch your imagination in the case of cricket because that is, in fact, what the BCCI has done to the game.