Why Did IPL Exclude Players from Pakistan?
The Indian Premier League (IPL), the nations top cricket league and one of the most important cricket leagues in the world held their player auction Today in Mumbai. The base price varied from $200,000 for players like Kieron Pollard (West Indies) and Wayne Parnell (South Africa) to $50,000 for Adam Voges (Australia) and $20,000 for
Yusuf Abdulla (South Africa). No player from Pakistan was selected on Tuesday. This is shocking considering that Pakistan is the current T20 World Champion.
Pakistan’s T20 captain Shahid Afridi conveyed his displeasure over the outcome and said that “Cricket is like religion in India and Pakistan. Sport is the only way to bring both the countries together. The Pakistani players have a huge fan base in India and we were expecting the IPL franchisees to take us. It is disappointing”. These comments hit me like a bullet.
Afridi also speculated that “I do not know why we were overlooked; the government may have put pressure on franchisees not to take us”. Afridi has every right to be disappointed with the auction. But I am not sure whether the Indian government had anything to do with the decision of the individual franchisees. But this does not mean that there is no wrongdoing in this case.
Responding to these allegations IPL Chief Lalit Modi said the following: “Availability of the players was a key issue with the franchisees without doubt. There were so many players left out in the auction and each team had its own strategy. I have no reason to believe there could be any other reason”. But is this observation correct?
Other than playing a couple of T20 matches against England later in February Pakistan does not have any international commitments in March or April of this year which is when the IPL is held in India. Pakistani players who have made themselves available for the IPL auction clearly do not have a scheduling conflict.
It should also be pointed out that several players who are participating in this year’s IPL including Ricky Ponting and a few other players from New Zealand have schedule conflicts and their contracts will most likely have to be renegotiated or brought out. Players with schedule conflicts have also played in the previous two versions of the IPL. So why is this different in 2010?
The fact that Pakistani players have been kept out of the Indian Premier League for two consecutive years does not bode well for India or the India-Pakistan relationship. The IPL is a private league and it can claim that it is not responsible for foreign affairs like the India-Pakistan relationship. But it is not that simple. India is an open society and we do not keep people out because we disagree with them or have problems with them.
Pakistani cricketers are hugely popular in their country and not selecting them to play will send a wrong impression of what India stands for. It is no doubt a big hit for our image not just among Pakistanis but the rest of the cricketing world. What good does it do if in a few years the IPL helps in improving our relationship with countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa but does not do so with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka?
Cricket has been used many times in the past as a weapon of choice between India and Pakistan. It has been used to send a message after conflicts like the recent Mumbai attacks and it has been used to encourage peace. There are some in India who are of the view that Pakistan should be left to its own devices and that the country will naturally fall apart and that we will deal with what is left later.
I always believe that we should instead build a strong economic relationship with Pakistan and help in its economic recovery. The last thing we want is 200 million people in our Western border without stable political institutions to govern them. Encouraging cricketing relationship is a small step in the right direction.
Pakistan is a cricketing powerhouse and the current World Champion of T20 cricket. The IPL and its franchisees should come up with better excuses than pointing to individual team strategies and conflict of schedule to explain why some of the best cricketers in the world cannot be part of the IPL. One excuse could be that IPL does not care about quality.
Unfortunately the IPL’s decision in this case appears very much like how the Australian government looks when trying to explain why Indian students are targeted in Australia. Let us call a spade a spade.
Related posts:
- IPL Puts India in an Embarassing Situation
- Indian Premier League’s Credibility Tainted
- Indian Premier League is not Sports but a Reality Show
- Indian Premier Stumbles & Fumbles
- Did You Root For Pakistan or New Zealand?
Category: Sports & Entertainment
IPL is a game of big money.
Those who have stakes-should be left alone to decide.
This is being simplistic. Society or government has no control over business? This is a clear case of discrimination.
Discrimination Chaltha hai because its Happens only in India
Because of Security reasons… if there is anything wrong and its matter of India-Pakistan..
You can check out this thread http://maxmayur.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/no-pak-players-in-ipl-iii-big-deal/
Nice Blog
Welcome Madhav. Security should not be an issue. Pakistani players have played in India before when there were much more tension between the two countries.
I would have been ok with the govt. deciding not to allow Pak players in IPL due to security concerns or imposing a sanction of some sort like they did with SA but if IPL owners had conspired to do this then the govt. should crackdown on them. It was funny that many of my friends from kerala had the same opinion, the same guys who support the communist govt. and encourage strikes against pvt. companies constantly for frivolous reasons.
Yep. This is clearly a case where the Indian public is supporting discrimination and then hiding under the fact that these are private companies and they can do what they want.