Time has come for Sports to challenge its political barrier

Moeen Ali wears a wristband with Save Gaza written over it during
the Southampton Test

By Himanshu Shekhar

Bodies governing sports have a point in not allowing show of political lineage but the line between political and humanitarian issues is increasingly getting blurred.

England cricketer Moeen Ali's wristbands that read 'Save Gaza' and 'Free Palestine’ during the second day of the third Test against India in Southampton stirred up a hornet's nest but a walk down memory lane will tell us that this is not the first such instance of a sportsperson making a political statement, Nor, I suspect, will it be the last one.

Of Basket Case and the ICC World T20

Himanshu Shekhar

For those who are into music and, especially rock, Basket Case would remind you of the early 90’s band called Green Day. For others like me, it is a term which renowned diplomat, political scientist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger once used to describe Bangladesh’s position in the South-Asian region soon after its birth in 1971. Referring Bangladesh as “bottomless basket,” Kissinger dismissed its economy as hopeless. The Secretary of States in Richard Nixon’s tenure was soon a hit with headline hunters, especially of the West, who made it a point to keep the Basket Case parallel alive.

Not a big fan of India and the role it played in the independence of Bangladesh, Kissinger’s comments were seen as a hard-hitting reality then. Fast-forward it to present. Once a struggling nation, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in various fields, be it its economy, human-growth index, polity, agriculture or sports. Regardless of the political unrest that the country has witnessed time-to-time in the past, it has managed to host global cricketing tournaments, showcasing the world its eagerness to free itself from the challenges arising out of uncontrolled population and poverty. Cricket has been an integral part of this success story.

The 42-year-young nation is on cusp of holding it’s first-ever ICC World Twenty20 event which is bound to attract cricketers and journalists from all-around the globe, giving themselves a chance to prove Kissinger wrong.

Cricket – CLR James once wrote – is never played in a vacuum, a fact often emphasised by my editor. So, when the world media and cricketers reach places like the mountainous city of Sylhet or the southern outskirts of Dhaka called Fatullah, it will give Bangladesh an opportunity to showcase its culture, demography, development and its heritage. The country first hosted a major cricketing tournament back in 1998. Sceptics then gave Bangladesh little chance but the hosts managed to pull-off the Wills International Cup successfully, paving way for the future. A year later, Bangladesh took a giant leap by qualifying for the 1999 cricket World Cup. It was time when cricket was taking over football as the most popular sport in the country. With cricketers gaining wider recognition in the country and cricket attracting more business than any other sports, came the 2011 cricket World Cup. By far, the biggest sporting extravaganza the nation ever hosted. It provided Bangladesh the impetus. Places like Dhaka, Fatullah, Chittagong made news headlines not for the routine flood, cyclone or political unrest that is often the case. The $ 100 million that the Sheikh Hasina-led government had spent helped them forge a brand. Apart from giving cricket a fillip, it also helped country’s “social and economic condition”, a fact then accepted by the Hasina government.

At a time when the country is making substantial progress in terms of its Human Development Index, innovations in food production, girl education, family-planning, child-health care among others; it is set to present the ICC World T20 as a new dawn. Today, as things stand, Bangladesh is the fourth-largest producer of rice in the world. It’s GDP is showing a 6.3% growth rate from –14% in 1971while its annual gross domestic production stands at $ 115.6 billion from $ 8.93 in 1970. Needless to say that the nation has come a long way to bring it out from a third world poor country to position itself as a developing world economy.

Media reports suggest that the Bangladesh’s government has spent more than $ 20 million on stadiums and cricketing infrastructure while the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has spent some $10 million. $30 million has been spent on roads which has helped cut the road journey from Dhaka to Fatullah from two hours to just half-an-hour.

Now let us get to the other side of the story. Is Bangladesh the only gainer with cricket’s rise in the country? Maybe not. Expansion of the sport in places like Bangladesh (Nepal, Afghanistan come as few other examples) helps it break free from the elite antipodean shackles. Bangladesh’s rise is a beautiful little story, the ICC World T20 gives them an opportunity to take a big step and turn it into an epic novel.

Last but not the least, pardon me for invoking CLR James again. "I haven't the slightest doubt that the clash of race, caste and class did not retard but stimulated West Indian cricket," James once famously wrote. I see no reason why it should not fit in for Bangladesh.

(Note: Bangladesh’s GDP data are from the year 2012)

Re-shaping the cricket globe

The big-three led by the BCCI may have forced their way in the recently-concluded International Cricket Council’s (ICC) meet in Singapore but in doing so, they have also severely compromised the apex cricket body’s long-standing vision, which reads: “As a leading global sport, cricket will captivate and inspire people of every age, gender, background and ability while building bridges between continents, countries and communities.”

In a sugar-coated release after the meet in Singapore on Saturday, the ICC also detailed the key resolutions passed. The meeting was attended by the chairman or president of each of the 10 Full Member boards plus three elected Associate Member representatives.

 “This decision comes after extensive discussions between members that I helped initiate and were given impetus through a position paper presented by the BCCI, Cricket Australia and ECB in early January,” ICC President Alan Isaac was quoted as saying in the release.

 “Since this time a set of resolutions have been drafted, negotiated and modified – based on a set of principles agreed by the ICC Board on 28 January – and finalized at the meeting today. There were eight Full Members who were in a position to support the resolution today and the two who abstained have pledged to further discuss the issues with an aim to reaching unanimous approval over the coming weeks,” read the statement issued by the ICC.

So let us just go back to the January 28 statement issued by the ICC. The subject line of the mail read “First day of ICC Board meeting concludes with unanimous support for key principles.” Among many “principles” which the ICC claimed had “unanimous support,” one was – “a need to recognise the varying contribution of Full Members to the value of ICC events through the payment of ‘contribution costs’. Within hours of the release, as many as three boards –Cricket South Africa, Pakistan Cricket Board and Sri Lanka Cricket -- went public with their displeasure and objections on many key issues. As it stands, the big three have managed to get the numbers in their favour. Have they managed to convince the cricketing fraternity?

 There is no doubt that a stronger India is a great thing for cricket at large. And, so for that matter, a stronger Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and South Africa will also do no harm to world cricket. The ICC restructure proposes many a good things, one among them is the FTP and the way Test cricket will try to pave way for the high performing Associate nations but, it also empowers the already powerful blocs rather than the disempowered. The so called custodians of cricket, led by the BCCI (read, not India), believe - they know and have a right to solve all the problem cricket is grappling with. This belief largely originates from the riches that cricket brings along and, it is the bigger slice of ICC’s revenue pie which is the driving force behind the structural revamp rather than transparency, accountability and inclusiveness.

 Among many points that the ICC’s Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA) presented in its “position paper” was that “members are providing their players and playing windows for ICC events," which constrained, "some members' ability to play their own events."  The statement in itself is a big farce considering how the BCCI and the Cricket Australia went ahead with successfully conducting their twenty-twenty leagues – the Indian Premier League and the Big Bash League.

No one should be against more money to cricketers or members getting a bigger share in ICC’s earnings, but to look at all the things with money being the only clinching factor, is equivalent to saying Tyson Gay must get more money on winning the race than an Usain Bolt, because America brings in more money to the sport.

Under the newly-laid structure, the BCCI is set to lead the ICC with N Srinivasan being the ICC chairman for a period of two years starting July this year, while Wally Edwards would head the Executive Committee (ExCo) and ECB chairman Giles Clarke would continue to head F& CA Committee.

The release issued by the ICC, or should one say the Big Three, further stated that “these roles will be for an initial two-year transitional period to 2016 only.” No one from the seven remaining ICC Full Members present in the Singapore meeting dared to ask why the three generous big brothers were not willing to share some burden of leading the three decision-making committees. This reminds me of the word “stepped over” from Francis Ford Coppola’s classic – The Godfather –II, where Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, is in conversation with his elder brother Fredo Corleone (played by John Cazale). Here goes the conversation:

 Michael (Pacino):  “I’ve always taken care of you Fredo.”

 Fredo (Cazale): “Taken care of me?  You are my kid brother. You take care of me. Do you ever think about that? Do you, ever, once think about that? Send Fredo off to do this, send Fredo off to that. Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere. Send Fredo to pick somebody at the airport. I’m your elder brother Mike and, I was stepped over.” Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or South Africa are not the big brothers of international cricket but even the younger ones don’t like being bossed.

For the moment, the big brothers of international cricket may have put aside the concerns of rest of the world, but history suggests that if money had the power to silence every discontent and win friends – the world would had never witnessed something like 9/11.

 Looking at the track record of the BCCI, which has been asked to lead the restructuring (if you got to believe Alan Isaac), one fears for the things to come. I would be pleasantly surprised if all our doubts are proved wrong, but I won’t be surprised if certain practices of the BCCI makes its way to the ICC. Don’t be surprised if international cricketers are gagged from talking to media just like their brothers in India are.

As it stands today, the BCCI does not recognise the New Media/Online media and hence do not allow any accreditation in its event. So, there’s a possibility that the ICC takes cue from its self-designated leader and adopts the same approach. No qualms. There must be some substantial reason which forced Cricket South Africa to vote for a change which just couple of days ago was “fundamentally flawed.” But one thing is clear – the ICC has lost its moral authority of being cricket’s just custodian.

 Having said all that, the writer of this blog is still trying to decode what CB Fry once famously wrote:

 “Either you know what game of cricket is, or you do not. If you do, you can not accept the dictum…that in cricket, the end justifies the means. It is a lie that cricket is a business.”