Where cricket is sold in the hands of entertainment.
Where players don't play for country honour but for money.
Where 'owners' not 'coaches' set standards for players to follow. ("I want 4 wickets" , 'Ok, ma'm")
Where players look more like servants to their owners than players.
5 comments:
Cricket is a sport, and any sport is a form of entertainment. The day Cricket will stop entertaining mankind; this sport will cease to exist. Like all other sports, Cricket is played at different levels; inter-club, inter-district, inter-state and finally international. It is not that one player directly comes to play the national level. It’s the club cricket that brings up the young lad.
IPL is also another form of club cricket, it has shown us so many talents that our country has hidden in the billion strong population. Yes, IPL is cash-rich! Nevertheless, that is a blessing.
We should not mind if players earn handsome money. We have to remember that this is their only source of income and the earning is only for few years; neither do they have any retirement package. All players do not attain the stature of Sachin, in name/fame/career/commercial value etc. IPL brings a good chance for any average player to earn attractive remuneration and also grow in career.
I do not want to comment on “Owners and their standards”. This is absolutely publicity gimmick to me. No professionally run organization allow non-technical people (who ever they are) to poke nose into technical things. It is always left to the techies who know best; otherwise, the results will suffer. The owners have invested hard earned money into these clubs and they surly do not want to see their money sink.
To IdontNeedName,
Yes, you are right. But I strongly feel that IPL brings an overexposure to cricket and that's making the palyers more money minded than game minded.
Oh, come on Doell! I can take IPL as a pretext of over exposure to viewers, not to the players. I know you work; you must be working hard for 5 days a week, all over the year. Do you think this overexposure (?!) to work has made you money minded? I don’t endorse such outlook.
I apologies being critical of your views, at the same time I believe you do need to appreciate that playing cricket, for players, is like just another day at workplace. There are at least 500 million or more people on Indian soil who do more labor intensive work than us, the cricketers, 365 days a year, and do not think twice about. If it’s about earning your bread, you have to do it.
Hi IdontNeedName,
A recent report in TOI Bangalore says that most of the cricketers now prefer to play for IPL than for their own countries and are ready to take up an early retirement for that.
So do you find this healthy?
I think there can be three different aspects to look at this information.
1. The sampling approach: How many actually make the ‘most’? The survey must not have asked the well-known cricketers this question. This must be answered by ones who are somewhat challenged (by age, competition, injury, wage). We can not take their declaration as the voice of all cricketers.
2. The naïve cricketer: Cricket till IPL was a poor sport. Yes! The cricketers used to earn in lakhs, but players of other sports make it in millions. In traditionally rich sports like Soccer (Football in India), players have tried this trick already and learnt the lesion. The moment the some footballers started ignoring the country, they vanished from the limelight. If you do not play well for the national side, you do not have any value for the clubs to run with a sack load of money (simple economics). Our naïve cricketers will soon learn this.
3. The Salary issue: Though I do not support any of these ‘Most’ cricketers for their statement, I think I am being biased. I have the right to call it quits when my employers do not pay me well. Why on earth these cricketers will not have that right? Most of these ‘most’ are from poorly paid countries. The basic survival instinct of mankind has pushed them to make this statement. Only few countries like India, Australia are good pay masters, in other cases the cricket board will hog the money instead.
I hope the cricketers will be sensible enough to take a call on their career, as retiring early will only doom their fortune. At the same time, the administrators will also try to control their lust for money and distribute some to cricketers who actually earn that cash. Lastly shame on the yellow journalism, where just handfuls thought are tagged to all cricket playing gentlemen.
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