The cups runneth over

Prem Panicker

Beginning June 12, India, Pakistan and New Zealand will over four days compete for the Siyaram's Cup in a triangular one day format, round robin style.

It is a competition "approved" by the BCCI, yet deemed unimportant enough to figure on the ICC calendar of events despite the presence of two international sides not counting the host nation. Funny, this.

In cricketing terms, I guess it is a time for top flight cricketers to play sans pressure, to parade their skills without thought of what it will do for their career stats, to hopefully concentrate, for once, on bringing pleasure to the spectators.

In other words, it is all the thrills and spills of war - with dummy ammunition. If, that is, you can imagine any Indo-Pak match happening without its share of needle.

But this whole affair has me a shade puzzled. I keep wondering, where exactly is this business called cricket headed?

Look at the genesis of the Siyaram Cup. Former Hyderabad star Arshad Ayub finds a company willing to spend big bucks to stage a cricket tournament. The kitty is rich enough to attract Pakistan and New Zealand, the former in particular being lured through payment of a very sizeable purse. Indian stars are promised sums depending on star appeal - thus, Sachin Tendulkar rates Rs 1 million, his former captain Mohammad Azharuddin rates exactly half that amount... and the other players all get to wet their beaks.

It doesn't seem to bother the Hyderabad Cricket Association that this tournament does not have international standing. It does not bother the BCCI - whose general secretary, Jagmohan Dalmiya, will a week from now take over as head of the global body - that the HCA openly says it was not interested in securing ICC approval as it is too much of a hassle and a waste of time besides. And for the most obvious reasons, it does not bother the members of the three teams that they are packing in yet one more slam-bam contest into an overcrowded international calendar.

A brief aside: Less than a fortnight ago, the members of the Indian team were talking of how tired and jaded, both physically and mentally, they were at the end of a season of record-breaking length, and how they were looking forward to spending some much needed downtime with their families before the next season began in mid-July with the Asia Cup. Judged by the speed with which they have all of them made a beeline for Hyderabad (since it is not an official tournament, no action can be taken against them if they decide not to play - and yet every single Indian player has made himself available - even Nayan Mongia, who just the other day told Rediff that he was looking forward to spending time with his bride from whom he had been seperated immediately after the wedding), money is apparently the best salve for fatigue of the mental and physical variety.

So like I said, where do we go from here?

Have we set a precedent whereby any company with money to spare - and India has several dozen of them, remember - can dig into its pockets, dangle appropriate carrots before local cricket associations and a couple of international outfits, and stage a tournament and the heck with the ICC?

Take that a step further. Consider that say Sachin Tendulkar, to take an obvious example, will never get Rs 1 million for three days of cricket - and that is assuming India makes it to the finals, otherwise it is just two games he needs to turn out for - when playing for the national side, what happens when an "officially unofficial" tournament like this happens to clash with an official one? Will the call of the country triumph over the siren song of money by the truckloads?

Are we, in short, headed for a more anarchic version of the Packer circus of yesteryears?

Arising from which, of what use is a global governing body for cricket if it cannot, at the very least, ensure that any tournament involving at least two international sides has to have official sanction?

Ironically, Tendulkar and Stephen Fleming will fly almost directly from Hyderabad to London to take part in a meeting of Test captains under the ICC aegis (Pakistan, the third team, is to be represented at the conclave not by Rameez Raja but by Wasim Akram). The topmost item on the agenda? A proposal for the ICC to bring in regulation to reduce the number of cricketing days in the international calendar!

Interesting. I mean, if the ICC does not have any say in deciding whether or no international teams can meet in competition, just how does it propose to enfore whatever regulation it does come up with?

On second thoughts, why worry? Who allowed the HCA to proceed with the Siyaram Cup? Jagmohan Dalmiya. Who, on June 16 - ironically, the day the final of the tournament will be played - will take over as ICC president? Jagmohan Dalmiya.

'Nuff said?