The real puppet-masters?

[andruid]

What do the following things all have in common?

All the hassle for faster overates in Test cricket?
Generally flatter decks with puuting green sooth outfields?
Super-sixes/super-eight stages at major ICC tournaments rather than good old fashioned QFs and SFs?
BCCI's rejection of the ICL for the IPL?
An increase in day-nighters in the Sub-Continent sometimes going till the witching hours?(Sri Lanka's last home series against England comes to mind)
A general increase in ODIs

Well in myopinion these things point to an increasingly heavy influence in the ICC boardrooms not just of the BCCi by of a certain cabal of TV companies in whoinvest silly amounts of money in boards such as the BCCI.

As far as over rates and flatter pitches go one cold argue that that this increase the amount of cricket played as well as maxing out the 5 days of broadcasting that TV companies pay. Nobody wants to have be desperately looking for something to fill two days of broadcasting because some fool prepared a minefield that saw the test match end in three days with only 200 overs bowled over the whole match so pressure is put on boards to squeeze 5 days out of all their games by hook or crook and because people do not tune in to watch the bowling captain convening a confrenece of all the thinkers of the team debating the finer points of having a third slip instead of a gully slow over rates become a means to cut back on such. (

Moving on to Super sixes or rather (send round group matches). Ftom where I see it they tend to be worshipped like th most important thing to happen to cricket where they exist yet as soon as the TV cameras disappear tournament organizers make them dissapear in a flash.

On the IPL vs. ICL, Why did the BCCI go and go through the trouble of starting a whole new T20 competition when are very similar one was already taking shape? Richard's views on this migh help this argument.

One of the ings I found really perplexing about Sri lanka's home series against England was how unusually it was to follow the action from England in a comepetition that was happening in a playce some 5-6hrs ahead in the time. Some I haven not looked into it but I suspect thate there has been an increase iun ODIs which are timed so that they fir in with the broadcasting needs of the team with the larger Tv audience sometimes at the expense of the people who actually turn up in the grounds to watch the games.

And as far as ODIs go, no matter how prematurely the game finshes (and we saw in the 5th match of the Eng-Ind series and the ICC world cup final how far rules can be made to force a contest where other formats would have given up hoep and gone home) you do not have to as bradcaster have to worry about haveing a whole days worth of back up programming in case one of the sides does the stupid thing and gets rolled over by an innings on day three or foruno matter enthralling those three or foru days of cricket are. So broadcasters obviously push for more ODIs and less tests

 

[G.I.Joe]

Your argument seems to paint a the picture of a BCCI-advertisers mafia. Advertisers do have a say IMO, but why single out the BCCI?

For one, faster over rates would eat into advertising time. Long conferences between captain and bowler are excellent spaces to fill out with advertisements.

It has been the BCCI who have pushed for quarterfinals in World Cups, the 1996 World cup had quarterfinals, and to the best of my knowledge, so will the 2011 World Cup.

The BCCI is under no restrictions in starting their own tournaments even if similar privately operated tournaments already exist. There were occassions in the past when the BCCI did try and get a venture similar to the IPL off the ground.

 

[andruid]

Your argument seems to paint a the picture of a BCCI-advertisers mafia. Advertisers do have a say IMO, but why single out the BCCI?

If it comes across like that then that is a bit of a whoops on my part. I point out the BCCI because there is a lot of talk of them being the big boys running the show which I think is highly overstated given as they could be very well be being used to push the broadcasters agenda as they earn the ost from broadcasters

For one, faster over rates would eat into advertising time. Long conferences between captain and bowler are excellent spaces to fill out with advertisements.

Faster over rated also lead to more cricket and hence more boundaries and wickets hence more manageable ad breaks than those which have to be shoehorned in when it becomes apparent that the captain takes 2-3 minutes to decide to move second slip to backward point and then back again.

It has been the BCCI who have pushed for quarterfinals in World Cups, the 1996 World cup had quarterfinals, and to the best of my knowledge, so will the 2011 World Cup.

Actually it was the Associates representatives who lobbied for a quartefinals as an alternative to having their numbers slashed from 6-4 for the 2011 WC

The BCCI is under no restrictions in starting their own tournaments even if similar privately operated tournaments already exist. There were occassions in the past when the BCCI did try and get a venture similar to the IPL off the ground.

True but why in this particular instace did they go as far as even disowning some of their administrator, coaches and players who took up the jobs in the ICL, to then turn around and form the IPL which is rather the same thing by a different name?

 

[G.I.Joe]

If it comes across like that then that is a bit of a whoops on my part. I point out the BCCI because there is a lot of talk of them being the big boys running the show which I think is highly overstated given as they could be very well be being used to push the broadcasters agenda as they earn the ost from broadcasters

Faster over rated also lead to more cricket and hence more boundaries and wickets hence more manageable ad breaks than those which have to be shoehorned in when it becomes apparent that the captain takes 2-3 minutes to decide to move second slip to backward point and then back again.

Oh, ok, I see what you mean. But I still don't think it fair to single the BCCI out. Channel 9, for example, has no commercial interests of note in India, yet we saw Ponting being docked for overrates after the Brisbane test. Besides, I sincerely feel dawdling by teams helps the advertisers more than fast over rates. It seems to me that most of the dawdling occurs during change of ends rather than mid-over.

Actually it was the Associates representatives who lobbied for a quartefinals as an alternative to having their numbers slashed from 6-4 for the 2011 WC

Quite possible, I'm not definitely sure of the forces behind that move. However, in my view the BCCI has always favoured knockout formats over the super stage formats. The 1996 World cup in the subcontinent had a knockout stage, the ICC Champions Trophy was conceptualised as a knockout tournament by Dalmiya, rather than the mini-world cup it has become after the first two editions. The first two editions in Bangladesh and Nairobi were perfect examples of what a multinational adjunct to the World Cup should be like. Of course, later the ICC turned both that and the World Cup into the borefests they are now.

True but why in this particular instace did they go as far as even disowning some of their administrator, coaches and players who took up the jobs in the ICL, to then turn around and form the IPL which is rather the same thing by a different name?

Private ownership by a single entity could have been one of the reasons. The IPL is made up of multiple parties which own teams, and results in a flow of revenue to the BCCI. The ICL comprises of teams owned by one single individual, and as a natural consequence, results in him gobbling up a lions share of the revenue. Besides there is the slippery slope argument. What if the BCCI sanctions the ICL, and another private party decides to launch one more private league?