Mukul Kesavan writes in The Telegraph:

Whether Subhash Chandra of Zee follows through with his Packerite circus or not, it’s on the cards that sooner or later someone will. Someone certainly should…

…A league based on team franchises and open to foreign players is a good idea in principle. I can see no disadvantage to a league where Ricky Ponting and Mashrafe Mortaza and Muttiah Muralitharan turn out for a Twenty-20 tournament called the Wipro Cup or a 50-over league sponsored by Tata. It would give Indian spectators a club league to follow in the same way as English spectators follow the careers of sides like Arsenal and Chelsea, packed with brilliant foreign recruits. Athletes like Ponting would force Indian players to lift their game. It’s also a ‘just’ idea: it’s unfair that fine players like Shane Bond and Mohammad Ashraful make a fraction of the money that Sehwag or Yuvraj have come to take for granted simply because they have fewer consuming countrymen watching them on television.

Quite right. The BCCI has for far too long neglected the interests of cricket in India. They might try to convince you that they have the interest of cricket in mind by promising initiatives but actions, like this means that money is the real interest, not cricket, where BCCI are concerned.

Monopolies reduce standards. Only when free markets prevail do enterprises feel the danger of becoming insignificant if they do not perform and standards truly improve. As Kesavan says in the piece, I hope some one does form an alternative cricket league, even if Zee backs out. In any case, there is a bleak possibility of interesting times ahead.

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