Bangladesh all messed up: blame the Indians

Thank the Lord for the BCCI. Now that Bangladesh’s national team has been set back by about a decade, we can all content ourselves that the Tigers never need tour India.

Phew.

Some might say that the Bangladesh Cricket Board are also partly to blame for this. They banned the 13 rebel players from all national and international cricket for ten years. This isn’t really because of Indian pressure, but because of the comments of former Tiger captain, Habibul Bashar:

“Screw you, hippies.”

So now the 13 are off to live a life-style of opulence and isolation. It’s funny how those things usually go side by side.

Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi side is completely buggered. And for this, I blame India. No one, specific India is to blame. I’ve met a few. Some of them are nice. Some.

The intransigence of the BCCI and its failure to pursue a sensible policy towards the ICL is beginning to have serious, and long-term effects for the game. Sure, a few old duffers can quietly see out their days in a moneyed segregation, but it’s the whole-sale importing and out-casting of national sides that becomes problematic.

Weirdly, the BCCI accepted the logic of the ICL. They have suddenly realised what a jolly good idea twenty20 cricket. So why can’t they get along nicely, merge their leagues and stop buggering up cricket.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

How do deal with India

Obviously, these people have become a right pain in the neck. They’ve become the Russia of modern cricket. Pushing everyone around, and no one is really sure why. It’s as if they’ve got lots of nuclear bombs, or something.

First, they refuse to involve themselves in twenty20 cricket. Then some people think twenty20 is a good idea. The BCCI reverses its decision and attempts to cash in on twenty20 and sets about ruining the lives of anyone involved in the original “rebel” league.

The BCCI’s own “legitimate” league is a farcical, purely commercial affair that ignored its effects on any other country.

Following the “amazing success” of the IPL, a Champions League of between domestic champions from across the world is announced. As soon as it is publicised, the BCCI decide to remove the English, because some of their players thought that twenty20 was a good idea before they did.

Then, the BCCI unilaterally announced that the international players playing for their sides would remain in their Indian team, presumably, they will be forced to play against their own home side.

Now, all of this is fine. Where the line must be drawn is when they make you spend your entire day off queuing at the Indian Embassy in London.

These buggers must be stopped.

I reckon we should remove the Indian teams from the Champions League, except for perhaps the ICL sides, which should solve some of our player-overlap problem. Then we naturalise Geoff Boycott as an Indian citizen, and make sure he’s on the telly all the time. That’ll learn ‘em.

That'll learn 'em good.

IPL yields to Ayalac pressure

Regular readers will know that AYALAC has long campaigned against the hypocrisy of Shoaib Akhtar's continued presence in the Indian Premier League.

AYALAC has longed railed against his inclusion, despite his five-year ban issued by the PCB, which we viewed arbitrary given the BCCI’s canvassing against ICL players’ participation in other domestic competitions.

IS Bindra, a member of the IPL governing council, after reading the AYALAC’s latest post, said:

"AYALAC is quite right. The scales have fallen from our eyes. Well done The Atheist.”

And then added,

“Shoaib has been banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board, and even though they have cleared him to play for IPL, we felt that international discipline needs to be respected. If he can't play for Pakistan, how can we play him? There will be no discipline left in the game, if we play him. It will set an unwanted precedent.”

This could be interpreted as an obvious rouse to influence other boards’ stances on ICL players, but we in AYALAC would rather consider it as another success for this blog and humanity in general.

Well done me.

Can we hate the BCCI more?

Of course we can, you goons! We already think that they are evil, bastards and even Nazis, but now it seems they are hypocrites.

Mushtaq Ahmed and Rana Naved Ul Hasan have gone for the ICL. They are also a bit old looking and probably don’t have too many seasons left in them. So, like any self-respecting knakered old geezer, they are finishing of their careers in a retirement home – English county cricket.

Seems reasonable? Ah, well that would be the wrong way to look at modern cricket. You need to put on your BCCI goggles. Here, I’ll show you what their world looks like:

THEY’RE OUT TO GET US!!! THE SWINES!!! THE SWINES!!!! THEY’RE TAKING OUR MONEY!!! MONEY!!! MONEY!!! WE MUST DESTROY THEM!!!! DESTROY THEM ALL!!! MONEY!!!

OK – you can take them off now. As you can see, it’s a heady vission, but it works for the BCCI.

Now, let us take another, seemingly unrelated episode: the Shoaib Akhtar affair.

Our ol’ mucker, Shoaib, is clearly mad. He attacks his fellow team mates with bats, insults his bosses and has generally made an idiot of himself for years. The PCB then metered out a five year ban.

The severity of this punishment obvious underlies the mismanagement of Pakistani cricket. Administrators cite “his continued attitude problems” as the reason. Imagine if all our bosses took this view: the Western economy would collapse.

Anyway, the PCB has banned Shoaib. So we can consider his career over. Wait…what’s this? He can still play in the IPL? That seems curious.

You would think that, given the BCCI’s stance on Mushie and Rana that they would, for the sake of consistency, apply the same standard to other players. Ah, but then you wouldn’t be wearing your goggles, would you? Reciprocity doesn’t happen when you wear your BCCI goggles, look:

OURS!!! HE’S OUR WIFE NOW!!1 MONEY!!! YOU CAN’T HAVE ANYTHING!!! GIVE IT ALL TO US!!! IT’S OURS!!!! EVERYTHING IS OURS!! MONEY!!!! MONEY!!!

Official AYALAC line on those Indian leagues

Be warned, this post is angry.

Right, the Indian Premier League (IPL) is rubbish. Let’s get that cleared out of the way. I have kept quiet on these twenty20 competitions because I don’t like twenty20. But now is the time for the noisy minority to speak out.

First came the Indian Cricket League - a rubbishy enterprise that sought to make lots of money from has-been or never-will-be cricketers. “Oh! That’s a terrible idea!” moaned the BCCI, “You’ll ruin cricket.”

But then they saw how much money could be made, and then they thought, “Bugger cricket! Let’s go for the money.”

Of course, this is a perfectly reasonable thought, if you are in a position to realise it, selling out for cash is always a good idea. However, I am not, so I think it’s a rubbish thought.

Now, the BCCI has decided that its raison d'etre is to make money, it is acting like any monopolistic firm would: it is clamping down on its competitors to maximise profits.

You might argue that the world cricket boards are behaving in an oligopolistic fashion – a small number of firms acting as a cartel to control the market. But you would be wrong; damn wrong.

The BCCI is the Big Daddy of the cricketing world, if Daddy wants other boards to ban players for playing in an unsanctioned league, then Daddy gets.

It is at this point that the analogy of sensible mechanisms of a free markets break down. Players are workers (bear with me) just like us; they sell their labour for money. Nothing wrong with that.

In any normal market, you apply to different firms, see who can offer you the most. Oh no, not in the BCCI’s market. The Daddy doesn’t want players to chose. Daddy wants them to be his bitches. AND WHAT DADDY WANTS, DADDY GETS.

Because Daddy wants a piece of the action, the other boards are struggling to pussy-foot their domestic schedules around Daddy. The IPL, generally, does not impact upon many other leagues – all except England’s, of course.

The early season of the English county championship overlaps with the IPL, so some of our more exciting players will be tempted away to the sub-continent. Even touring Kiwis are requesting permission to bugger off.

What that’s, little one-legged, orphan-boy, Jimmy? You want to watch your favourite, Dimitri Mascarenhas play at Hampshire this season? You’ll be saving up for ages for that ticket?

Well tough totty. DADDY WANTS DIMITRI MASCARENHAS.

The worst thing about this whole endeavour is that no-one knows why they are doing it.

The IPL bases itself around English football’s Premier League – the most soulless of all the football leagues. People come from all over the world to play in places like Middlesborough. Adoring fan attempt to scream unprenouceable names as if the centre forward from Burkina Faso was actually their mate Pete who works in the chip shop.

They don’t care they. As long as “their” side wins. They recognise money is necessary for this – everyone else has money, right?

Ah. That’s why we’re doing this. Money. Of course. How incredibly stupid of me. Money is important to have in the game, isn’t it?

Just look at England, historically loaded with government grant after government grant, and look how wisely they have spent it. Look how good our team is.

What! Am I suggesting that there is no evidence that shows that money has improved the game? Surely not! The administrators tell us without money the game would die. If the kiddies playing in the street weren’t sponsored by Arse Ltd., they would literally put down their bats and play golf. Literally.

It’s odd to think how India won the World Cup in 1983, when its Board wasn’t nearly as rich as it is now. Must have been a fluke. Cricket wasn’t as good as it is now. That’s FACT. Just look at the money involved.

Bollocks to you IPL. Bollocks to you twenty20. Bollocks to you BCCI. Bollocks to the cricket administrators. Bollocks to the lot of you.

Right. Well, lets lighten the mood, shall we? (Well done on getting this far.) On a happier note, King Cricket has grown up, and put into print. That’s right, paper!

When you thinking you’re doing OK as a blogger, someone like JRod comes along, and blogs his way into the annuals of legendary bloggers overnight. His excellent site has just started a new podcast series. Well worth a listen to.

Those blogs are happy places.

He’s not a pariah, he’s a very naughty boy

The BCCI is cracking the whip, enforcing their power and giving their players a bit of a telling off. There are reports that, if Sourav Ganguly doesn’t behave, he’ll go to bed without watching Chucklevision.

Harbhajan Singh’s appeal has reversed the judgement that he used racial abuse in the course of test match. It was decided that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that he used racist language, but there was evidence to indicate he had been generally abusive.

The question is just what kind of pillock is Harbhajan? The answer is not as much as a big one as we first though. However, he is still has a propensity to deliver the feared “Harby Super Knee-to-the-groin Special”, even to his team mates.

In any case, the mums in charge of the BCCI said,

"We have told the players not to get into altercations,”

You rather wonder what the advice was before this unfortunate affair. I suppose it followed the standard Australian approach of verbally engaging with the opposition at every available opportunity. I don’t know, I’m just some guy, you know.

Anyway, the Indians: behave! Or they’ll be consequences. Perhaps they’ll send you to the naughty corner, which, I understand, is being dubbed the “Indian Cricket League”.

India's squad to England

Here’s a nice picture of sunny Headingley my roving reporter sent me. Nice, isn’t it?

Anyway, did you see the news about Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh? They have been left out of India’s summer tour to England.

This is rather unfortunate for Sehwag, as he had a reasonable Afro-Asia Cup, hitting a 30-ball fifty. He also looked liked he was easing back into form, he got some runs against someone I can’t remember recently, and hit a World Cup century. Seems odd, therefore, that our Virender can represent his continent but not his country.

This is because the BCCI's frustration with his unfulfilled potential. He had a rotten series in South Africa, scoring 89 from six innings. And before that World Cup ton, he last got into triple figures in 2005 in an ODI. May this is the end for the old war horse? It seems sad, but, knowing Indian administration, he’ll be in and out of the side for a few years yet.

Dropping Harbhajan Singh is a bit more of a straight-forward cock-up. In the last test match he played, he managed a five-for, and another one in the test before that. In the Afro-Asia series, he took four wickets in his two matches, at 25 a piece. He is a quality player and England are rubbish at playing him.

Weirdly, Ramesh Powar has been given the nod. He too is an off-spinner. Only he’s old and not very good. Even young Piyush Chawla was left out.

All these things annoy me.