The Mother Of All Snubs

The IPL is in the news again, but this time for all the wrong reasons. The IPL's second auction was supposed to generate as much curiosity if not more, as the first auction did. It did make people sit up and take notice, albeit for different reasons altogether. When the affable Dr. Manmohan Singh(the honourable Prime Minister of India) himself voices concern over such trivial issues as an IPL auction then we all know that something is seriously wrong. And wrong it went at the IPL auction where one man set out to tarnish the image of India and Indian Cricket. If you are into newspapers or for that matter into news of any kind, you would have probably figured out by now what the next few lines are going to read like.

Trust Lalit Modi, the BCCI's poster boy to come up with a master plan to hype this year's edition of the IPL. After all here's a man who changed the face of Indian Cricket for good(not anymore). That the IPL was his brain child is common knowledge. The inaugural edition of IPL sounded the death knell for the rebel ICL, in the process saving BCCI from major embarrassment. It also confirmed India's status as the game's undisputed financial powerhouse, much to the chagrin of the Englishmen who still think they hold the copyrights to anything remotely concerned with cricket.

By the time the second edition of the IPL commenced the ICL was more or less confined to the pages of history. But IPL faced a challenge of completely different nature. General elections were round the corner and the Central Government thought it was all but impossible to provide security to the host of cricketers taking part in the IPL. Lalit Modi's response ? He shifted the IPL to South Africa much to the embarrassment of the Indian security establishment. A move that did wonders though, to the popularity of the already popular cricketing extravaganza called the IPL. So far so good.

Come March 2010 and IPL3 kick starts. The second auction to fill up a few vacant slots was seen as an ideal curtain raiser for the event, instead it raised more eyebrows and caused much heartache, especially to the Pakistani players. Prior to the auction Lalit Modi made all the right noises and got the Pakistani players enrolled for the same. But the grand snub that the franchises gave to the Pakistani players at the auction came as a bolt from the blue not only for the Pakistanis but also for everyone else who were looking forward to their participation in the showcase event. But this time, Lalit Modi in his over zealousness for publicity seems to have shot himself in the foot, what with the Indian Government washing its hands clean of any involvement in the fiasco(the home minister Mr P. Chidambaram himself issuing a statement to this effect) and a couple of franchises vocally expressing their displeasure at the way the entire episode was handled(Shah Rukh Khan even went on to say that the Pakistani Players were not made legally available). As expected Lalit Modi feigns ignorance and squarely puts the blame on the franchises who in turn are listing out cosmetic excuses for dishing out the royal snub. Of course not many are willing to buy their arguments.

Why get the Pakistanis into the auction in the first place if you don't want them in action ? Well, Lalit Modi would like us to believe that it was at the behest of the government that he did so, which on paper seems highly unlikely. Even if this were the case, Modi would have had made a complete fool out of himself because the government will never own up responsibility for it even if they were the real brains behind it. If this was Lalit Modi's idea of getting back at Pakistan for 26/11 then he needs to grow up, because you don't get bravery awards for taking out soft targets. As heinous a crime as it was against India and its people, Afridi & Co. are certainly not the ones to be blamed for what happened on 26/11. Sporting arenas are not meant for washing each other's dirty linen. In fact by indulging in such cheap jingoism Modi has belittled India. You don't invite people and humiliate them like this. That's so un Indian and amateurish. Such moves will only cause more bad blood between the already estranged neighbours. And if at all the whole thing was stage managed to garner publicity for the event, then shame on you Lalit Modi and BCCI(for being his partner in crime).

Lalit Modi is a classic example of how success and failure can collectively cripple someone's ability to think straight. What we saw at the IPL auction was sheer arrogance and madness from a super successful man(read Lalit Modi) desperate to hog the limelight in order to avert his own downward spiral that started with his drubbing in the RCB(Rajasthan Cricket Board) elections and reached its pinnacle with this unwanted controversy. It goes without saying that such display of misplaced bravado will not win him any admirers(the dals and the senas are an exception though). The high drama played out at the IPL auction was something that could and should have been avoided. What Lalit Modi did was penny wise pound foolish and its a pity that the wise men at BCCI actually let him get away with his act.