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News : No IPL matches in Chennai, final moved to Bangalore
News : Second phase of IPL in India from May 2
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The allotment of venues for IPL matches is
predominantly a political game between the BCCI and its associations;
the recent shuffle of the playoffs' hosts suggests as much
On Sunday night, Kolkata Knight Riders played an 'away' game against Kings XI Punjab in Cuttack.
On Wednesday, they will return to the venue for a 'home' game. It's
just one of those quirks of scheduling that seem to fit right into the
IPL's nomadic format. Elections, court cases, international politics
have all affected the allotment of venues in the tournament, which of
late has become a tool for political manoeuvring within the BCCI - most
evident in the recent changes to the venues of the IPL playoffs, including the final.
The announcement of the original IPL schedule
of the India leg hinted that the venues had been finalised keeping an
eye on the September election of the BCCI; recent changes, including
Saturday's announcement of the shifting of the playoff matches and the
final, have only firmed up that belief, with several politically
significant state bodies having been showered with multiple IPL games.
For a state body, hosting an IPL match is as financially rewarding as it
is prestigious. Each member unit earns approximately Rs 2 crore from
the BCCI for staging an IPL game. Add to that the variable sums that are
charged for letting out practice facilities to the home teams, and the
state bodies' desperation to host IPL matches is understandable.
The original IPL schedule had ensured that two of stood-down BCCI
president N Srinivasan's most trusted lieutenants from the east zone -
Orissa and Jharkhand bosses Ranjib Biswal and Amitabh Choudhary - had
been awarded IPL games, completely out of turn. Ranchi and Chennai are
located at two different corners of the country. So are Chandigarh and
Cuttack. Still, Ranchi - hometown of Chennai Super Kings captain MS
Dhoni - was originally awarded two of Super Kings' home games, and then
got two more when the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association conveyed its
inability to host any games this season.
Cuttack's Barabati Stadium, meanwhile, was awarded two of Kings XI
Punjab's home matches, and got one more when Kolkata Knight Riders' home
game on May 14 had to be moved from Eden Gardens - thus making it
perhaps the first ground to act as an adopted 'home' of two teams in the
same season.
Why are Biswal and Choudhary - and their home grounds - significant?
Both are supporters from the east zone of the ruling faction led by
Srinivasan and hold top positions in the BCCI. While Biswal is the IPL
chairman, Choudhary heads the powerful BCCI marketing committee.
The key, though, is that it is the east zone's turn this year to
nominate a president for three years from October 2014. The BCCI
constitution allows the candidate to be from outside the east zone if he
is nominated by an east zone member and seconded by another.
And so matches and venues are used as carrots and sticks. If Cuttack and
Ranchi benefited from their proximity to the power centre, venues that
came under BCCI officials critical of Srinivasan and his tenure were
left out in the cold.
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha had informed the BCCI that
there would be no problem in playing IPL matches at their respective
venues anytime after the date of voting. However, the BCCI turned a
blind eye on the associations of Ajay Shirke, the Maharashtra Cricket
Association president who had resigned
as BCCI treasurer protesting against the handling of the IPL corruption
scandal; Jyotiraditya Scindia, the MPCA head who was the first to question
Srinivasan after the corruption scandal broke last year, and Manohar
from Vidarbha, the most vocal detractor of Srinivasan after Modi.
The case of Mumbai, which lost the final to Bangalore, is more complex.
In the original schedule, the IPL had followed the set norm of allotting
the last two games, including the final, to the home ground of the
defending champion. Saturday's announcement of the change offered no
explanation for it, and there has been none since - the truth will
probably be hard to explain. The main factor has been the prevailing
acrimony between the MCA and the BCCI hierarchy.
Sharad Pawar's return
as the MCA chief last October has made the ruling regime in the BCCI
wary of the MCA. To add to that, ever since Pawar's return, Ravi Savant,
the MCA and BCCI vice-president, has time and again questioned the BCCI
decisions in the public domain. Pawar's public criticism of the suspension
of the Rajasthan Cricket Association on May 6 is being considered the
key reason that led to the change of the venue for the final.
Mumbai's loss has been Bangalore's gain. But Bangalore hasn't benefitted
only due to its ostensibly luxurious hospitality boxes. Five months
ago, the power centres in the Karnataka State Cricket Association
experienced a shift
from Anil Kumble's group to Brijesh Patel's. Since then, the BCCI top
brass has been doling out all sorts of favours to the new KSCA regime.
The team managers for India's last two overseas assignments - the Asia
Cup and the World Twenty20 - were both KSCA representatives, and the
allotment of the final is being seen as yet another step by BCCI top
brass led still led by the sidelined N Srinivasan to keep a key south
zone member happy.
Similarly, allotting an IPL playoff game each to the Cricket Club of
India's Brabourne Stadium and Eden Gardens are seen as measures to keep
two more voting members on the right side ahead of the BCCI elections in
September.
Awarding IPL games to units close to the president isn't new. The DY
Patil Sports Stadium, a private stadium in Navi Mumbai, hosted two IPL
finals, thanks to its owners' close links with Modi, the then IPL
chairman, and Pawar, who was the BCCI president when the IPL was
launched. Similarly, when Deccan Chargers had to play their home games
away from Hyderabad in 2010, Nagpur - the home city of then BCCI
president Shashank Manohar - was one of the three home venues of the
franchise.
Similarly, Kochi Tuskers Kerala played two of their home games in
Indore, the cricketing base of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association,
in their only season. Sanjay Jagdale, the most influential personality
from MP cricket, was then the BCCI joint-secretary and soon took over as
the secretary. Before this season, Dharamsala, the home of BCCI
joint-secretary Anurag Thakur, was the favoured adopted home of Kings XI
Punjab.
Amol Karhadkar is a correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
Feeds: Amol Karhadkar
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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