Kerry good, ICL bad?

Marsh is taking wickets,

Hookesy’s clearing pickets,

And the Chappells’ eyes has got that killer gleam,

C’mon Aussie, c’mon

— Australian World Series song

It was the late 70s and cricket had suddenly found its mojo. Big boys were playing at night, and with jingles such as C’mon Aussie, c’mon playing on Channel 9, Kerry Packer’s World Series had started a revolution that would change the game forever.

But when I was growing up, I distinctly remember that Packer was not just considered a magician who transformed one-day cricket, but also a tycoon who used his money to hold the game to ransom. There were admirers back then, sure, but his position as modern one-day cricket’s father-figure came rather grudgingly, with lots of riders attached to it.

With the passage of time, the impression somehow started to change. His World Series was slowly celebrated wholeheartedly. The arguments against him started to dwindle, and anecdotes of how he always got his way became hallmarks of his conviction rather than his ruthlessness. Of all the big boys, we proclaimed that Packer was the biggest.

The similarity between what Packer did to one-dayers and what’s going on now with the emergence of T20 as the format of the future is almost uncanny — his night cricket had also started when ODIs were at a nascent stage.

But this time, criticising the importance being given to the game’s even shorter version is a very unpopular opinion. Cricket boards have started wilfully allowing players to choose what they prefer — league or country — and more abbreviations are sprouting up like weeds every day. And these — IPL, EPL, APL, PPL — are no ordinary weeds. They’re magic weeds which are slowly becoming more important than the crop they’re growing with.

Though it’s just a footnote now, before all these different ‘PLs’ had come the ICL. This new revolution, let’s face it, was started by Subhash Chandra, a media baron like Packer who everybody in the cricket establishment has branded as the villain of the piece. Strange, because the ICL hasn’t even asked players to give up any other commitments like Packer had done 30 years ago.

The Indian cricket board, threatened like any monopoly would be when faced with an uprising, has come down hard on Chandra & Co. And, after slaying the demon with the resounding success of their own league, the BCCI — led by Lalit Modi, who spares no opportunity to project himself as the Packer of this era — started hacking its limbs.

Going against the basic principles of natural justice, ICL players were banned from all ‘official’ cricket, its former-cricketer office-bearers were not given pensions, its chairman’s posters were pulled down from the Mohali stadium, English counties with players in the ICL were asked to stay away from the proposed Champions League, and now, Indian players have been ‘advised’ not to be a part of counties that have any ICL players in their ranks.

It’s funny that Packer, a businessman who we now celebrate as a visionary, got money, clout and recognition for threatening to split world cricket. But Chandra, another businessmen whose idea will end up having as deep an impact as Packer’s, is getting nothing. Even his players are now kicking themselves for putting their professional careers in jeopardy.

With the whole might of world cricket gunning for the ICL, there is little doubt that it will be ground to dust sooner rather than later. But, 30 years from now, will Chandra’s little league of has-beens and would-never-have-beens at least be remembered as the one that transformed T20?