Paws off cricket please

Sports

The other day when the Sri Lankan cricket hierarchy called up the media people for the launching of the short Indian tour to Sri Lanka I felt the head table looked rather lopsided. As usual the Lankan cricket CEO Duleep Mendis, Captain Mahela Jayawardene and coach Trevor Bayliss were there but still I felt there was something missing or too much.

Then what I noticed there were the non-contributors seated right in the middle of the HT in minister of sports and recreation Gamini Lokuge as the head of the Lankan delegation and his secretary S. Liyanagama who had taken his seat in the capacity of the competent authority of Sri Lanka Cricket.
Ironically in my long association with cricket in this country this was the first time that I saw one in the capacity of a politician heading an international cricket exchange in this country.

Earlier we had seen Lakshman Jayakody, Gamini Dissanayake and Tyronne Fernando – out and out politicians occupying that hot seat, but they were essentially there as the Presidents of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka at given junctures in our cricket history. However here it was a minister who has powers vested in him on merit of the sports law who was at the helm. Had it been the SLC competent authority sitting there in his capacity as the competent authority of SLC, it may have been excusable, but this looked a bit out of place especially in an international context.

The other question is was the contribution that the minister or his secretary could make internationally at a forum of that nature. The best example is the present Lankan representation at the ICC board meeting in Perth Australia where SLC competent Authority S. Liyanagama and a lawyer named Navin Marapona – a complete outsider to local cricket administration have made the trip.

For this status quo you first must find fault with the circumstances leading to this scenario, because that too was political manoeuvring at a higher level that did not have an iota of cricket included in it.

Arjuna Ranatunga was Sri Lanka’s cricket captain when his star-studded side powered in to win the 1996 cricket World Cup. But he could not harness enough support among his cricketing brethren in local clubs to vote him into power. However through the above move he took the main seat at SLC and said that this was the only way that a cricketer could come to rule the most popular game in this country and blamed a cricketing mafia that keeps the others out of contention.

The Sports Minister in his capacity as Sports Minister heading a news conference at SLC headquarters. (Pic Ranjith Perera)

Many people including this column was happy at his induction, but, soon were rather bewildered by the path that Sri Lankan cricket began to take. One of the most news-worthy incidents during his short reign was the termination of the Taj TV deal Ranatunga described as a shady deal done by his predecessor which the latter refuted vehemently.

This was followed by internal ascertaining and other fundamental rights cases against the cancelled deal till finally there was a court order to renegotiate the same according to the minister.

By then Ranatunga was at war with the neighbouring cricket nations and had been at the helm for eleven months, but minister Lokuge then decided that it was time for a change.

At the same time the Lankan cricket calendar which looked subdued up to that point suddenly was busy as a bee.
Now it was not only the Ranatunga fashioned out non FTP tour to Pakistan, but the short, but lucrative Indian ODI tour was also in the bag.

It does not matter as to who pioneered this tour at this end, but the encouraging point is that India who very recently was rather unhappy with the SLC posture in world cricket is in Sri Lanka playing the series of matches.

But, how lucrative it has been is the question at hand. Initially it was said that SLC was looking for a sum of US$ 12-13 million for the TV rights deal. But subsequently it was given only for a low US $ six million – a series that contains 5 ODIs and a T20 against the team representing the world’s biggest cricket audience -- India.
Some felt the sum was not enough for a series so big, while some others felt Nimbus TV who clinched the deal had paid too much for it.
India’s Economic Times newspaper in a report published on January 22 said: “Harish Thawani-promoted Nimbus Sports International, which won the commercial and worldwide television, broadcast rights for the upcoming India-Sri Lanka series on Wednesday, has begun hard-selling the series in a challenging market.

“Nimbus is learnt to have paid Rs 45 crore {Indian Rs. 450m} for the rights, and the telecast of the five one-dayers and a T20 game will be on Neo Cricket.

“Said Neo Sports Broadcast CEO Harish Thawani: ‘We hope our key advertisers from the two abandoned India-England one-dayers will continue with us.’

“The broadcaster has floated spot rates of Rs 2.25-2.5 lakh per 10 seconds for the one-dayers and Rs 3.5-4 lakh for the T20 match. That's on par with what Neo Cricket had charged — Rs 2.5-2.75 lakh for the India-England one-dayers last year. “But media buyers believe Nimbus may have overpaid for the rights not only because it will have a tough time recovering advertising costs when advertisers have committed money elsewhere but also because the broadcaster has very limited time to sell the event. “Nimbus is learnt to have offered to pay in instalments within a stipulated time, similar to the previous deals with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).”

One startling point here is the sum depicted in Sri Lanka and the sum given here in the Economic Times. The Lankan publicized sum is US$ 6 million, but, the Indian sum of rupees 45 crore counts to much more than that.

Ever since Sri Lanka won the World Cup doubts about the transparency of TV deals have surfaced and then have been swept under. We just hope that this is not another incident of that nature. Because if the deal was done by a government-appointed body they could be taken to task, but, if a direct government-controlled body is blamed for a deal of this nature where would the cricketers go.

PS: Please clean up this only game in which Sri Lanka is holding its head high internationally. Paws off Cricket please!

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