The Shame at IPL auctions

The Pakistanis are upset with us and I can’t blame them either. This entire episode involving the (non) auction of 11 Pakistani players, many from the last year’s world cup winning team has left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. That none of the teams bid for a single Pakistani player is ridiculous and the reasons appear to be all non cricketing.

Cricket is a religion in our part of the world and apart from our shared language and culture is the most potent unifying force in the subcontinent. Indian Premier League, which is now in its third year is an eagerly awaited extravaganza involving franchised city based teams with fancy names competing for the trophy. Each team has local players as well as foreign ones and it is through open auctions that the teams vie to buy the players they fancy. Thus for players especially the emerging ones, it is a big ticket opportunity to display their talents on a global stage and make pots of money.

In all this commercial hoopla one expects IPL organisers to play by the rules. By keeping the Pakistani players out of the IPL and in the manner this has been done reflects very poorly of the IPL as well as Indian cricketing establishment. As an Indian my head hangs in shame at the machinations of the IPL czar Lalit Modi. Apparently what happened is simple enough. There were 11 Pakistani players participating in player auctions and none of the teams bid for anyone of them. It seems that Mr. Modi leaned on the team owners and all of them deliberately boycotted Pakistani players. This after these 11 players had been cleared by both the Pakistani and the Indian government to play in India.

The Pakistanis believe this is deliberate humiliation not only of their players but also of their entire cricketing establishment. I would tend to agree. If the Pakistani players were not welcome to play in India (for whatever reason), it would have been perfectly alright to inform their board accordingly and not have these players available for the auctions. This may have caused a furore, however the IPL/BCCI would well have been in their rights not to invite Pakistani players to participate in the IPL. Having invited these players for the auctions and than not bidding for them on dubious grounds is shameful sleight of hand and must be condemned in the harshest of terms.

To make matters worse IPL and some of the franchise owners have trotted out lame excuses for their conduct. Lalit Modi wants all of us to believe that he and his colleagues in the BCCI did not push the franchise owners in keeping away from the Pakistani players. He would also like us to believe that all the competing teams on their own decided that having Pakistani players in their ranks makes no sense and each of them individually steered clear of these palyers!And surely butter won’t melt in Mr. Modi’s mouth.

I believe that by excluding Pakistani players IPL teams have made a mistake. And the manner this has been done is downright disgraceful.

It is time we got rid of him as the IPL chief. That is perhaps the least we can do to make amends.

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright…

Tiger Woods is truly lost in the woods.

The Hindustan Times this morning put the count of his mistresses at 10. Tomorrow some more may emerge from the woodwork (well ,the pun is intended).These include waitresses, night club hostesses and even porn stars. Tiger Woods, one of the world’s most loved sports person and certainly the wealthiest has literally been caught with his pants down. And in todays connected world he has no place to hide. The internet is full of Tiger Jokes and television ads featuring him are disappearing.

Tiger Woods is no longer ‘the world’s ultimate symbol of high performance’ (or maybe he is in a very different sense!!!) as Accenture would like us to believe.

Why on earth somebody like Tiger Woods risk so much for so little. Is it a kind of mad streak that runs through some extraordinarily successful people (can’t help but remember Bill Clinton), who just can’t help but blow it (well can’t help the pun again!).

Here is my little theory for whatever it might be worth.

Most people like Tiger Woods who are enormously successful and enjoy public adulation in the extreme tend to start believing in their iconic imagery. They start looking upon themselves as infallible, capable of doing no wrong. In their own eyes, they become larger than life. Because of this inherent belief in their own goodness and God like presence, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil is seriously diminished. In their exalted state, their moral compass fails to register anything and thus they do what they like.

More importantly they start taking fame and success for granted, not realizing how ephemeral these are. Tiger Woods probably believed that he is super smart that no one catch him philandering and that he can easily get away with it all. I am not sure if Tiger Woods even understood what he was gambling with. For him perhaps success and ‘high performance delivered’ is a daily routine, pretty much like going to work every morning for you and me.

Or maybe Tiger loved the animal thrill of it all. Leading a double life can be highly exciting for some folks and the higher the stakes, the greater the thrill. So for Tiger, the chase, the hunt all carefully hidden behind the cultivated image of a family man was maybe the ultimate game. The trophies in this game can not be displayed in his cupboard, but they are there to be had. And Tiger being the ultimate predator would go for them with a vengeance.

Well whatever be the real reasons for Tiger’s dalliances, the fact remains that in all this messy business he has lost many of his stripes. Will he ever be able to regain them, only time will tell.

Pic courtesy www.accenture.com