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DD hits the jackpot

We'll give it to you straight -- Doordarshan (Prasar Bharti, as BCCI secretary J Y Lele kept insisting) has bagged the telecast rights of all international cricket to be played on Indian soil till the year 2004.

The decision was taken at the working committee meeting of the BCCI, in Bombay, and announced by Lele at a media briefing at the C K Nayudu Hall at the Cricket Club of India this evening.

While Lele was reluctant to go into details, confidential sources within the board informed Rediff that Doordarshan bid Rs 435.4 million per annum for the privilege.

Losing bids came from Zee TV (390 million), ESPN-Star (290 million) and Sony TV (280 million).

In return for the international telecast rights, DD is bound to telecast 21 days of live domestic cricket per year -- these telecasts to include Ranji Trophy, Irani Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Wills Trophy matches, plus one single Deodhar Trophy game. Lele, while making the announcement, said that Deodhar Trophy was a 'bleak' tournament, and therefore only one game would be telecast -- why the board in its wisdom has not done anything to up the standard of this tournament is, of course, neither here nor there.

The outcome has, behind it, the hand of Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, who had earlier professed himself determined to bag the rights, and has for the past several days been lobbying intensely behind the scenes to ensure that DD got the privilege.

It also provides an excellent insight into how the board functions. Initially, the heads of the various bidding companies were expected to arrive in Bombay for the meeting. However, the board informed the head of ESPN-Star that the decision would not be taken at this meeting, that a trip to Bombay at this point was unnecessary, and that he could come instead to Calcutta this Sunday to discuss the matter.

If the ESPN-Star boss has indeed booked his ticket to Calcutta, he can now revise his travel plans -- the deal has been signed, sealed, and delivered.

The board in the person of Lele indicates that only one criterion -- besides money, of course -- was used to determine the outcome. Thus, Lele pointed out, satellite television covered only 15 million homes, whereas DD covered 54 million homes. The idea, the board secretary said, was to reach as many homes as possible, with a view to spreading the appeal of the game further afield.

A detailed agreement between Prasar Bharti and Doordarshan is expected to be executed soon.

Another major decision taken during the working committee meeting - which began this morning and finished around 6.15 this evening - was that India will not play the Sahara Cup tournament in Toronto, Canada, against Pakistan this year. Lele indicated that the board had received a letter from the government of India - the PM's office to be more precise - stating that it would be "inappropriate" to play Pakistan in Toronto this year, in view of the present circumstances.

Lele however said that the board would honour prior commitments to participate in other tournaments involving Pakistan in the future -- including the triangular involving India, Pakistan and Australia, to be played Down Under at the turn of the Millennium.

Yet another major decision taken -- and anticipated in these columns earlier -- was that the sponsorship of the Indian team for the next three years would remain with ITC, which has been sponsoring the side -- at a whopping Rs 2.5 million per match -- for the next three years. Interestingly, the losing bidders included Pepsi and the Bombay-based tabloid, Mid-Day.

Follows, a shortlist of other decisions taken during the working committee meet:

1) During the New Zealand tour of India, three Tests and five one day internationals, plus three three-day warm-up games, will be played. The venues are: 3-day fixtures at Pune, Jodhpur and Bangalore; Test matches at Kanpur, Ahmedabad and Mohali; ODIs at Rajkot, Gwalior, Delhi, Guwahati and Hyderabad.

In this connection, it was also decided that the BCCI special committee in charge of grounds and pitches will inspect Faridabad and Indore, and evaluate those two centres with a view to allotting tour games in the future.

2) With a view to curb rowdyism and disruptions, the BCCI has decided to ban for one year any ground wherein disruption and crowd trouble causes abandonment of play. If such incidents occur at the same venue twice in the span of five years, a two-year ban will be imposed. The decision will not, however, have retrospective effect -- in other words, venues such as Calcutta, which has seen disruption in the past, will not be penalised unless and until such incidents occur in future.

3) Captains have been asked to report on umpires in domestic tournaments, with a view to evaluating the performance of the officials.