Enoughs enough

It is becoming impossible to dispel the suspicion that the Indian Premier League is simply a vehicle for this countrys cricket bosses to nourish their arrogance. And this is done,in diverse ways,by improvising the manner in which the tournament is staged so as to establish the IPLs,and thereby the BCCIs,contempt for consequences. They disregard,and therefore they are. So now,unmindful that sport is all over the world conducted with an overhang of security considerations,and that signalling is the difference between caution and panic,they have passed judgment on Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam. They have decreed that the Telangana agitation has rendered the cities unsafe for IPL matches,provoking a legal notice from the local franchise owners and defending champions,the Deccan Chargers.

The Chargers will pursue their settlement with the BCCI. But the boards overreach is making the IPL unsafe for this country. Take the latest two-step. Sharad Pawar last week called on Bal Thackeray,at a time when the Shiv Sena stood at its most politically isolated,an isolation that threatened to also marginalise the NCP. But it was let out that Pawar was not calling on Thackeray in his capacity as an NCP leader,but in fact,to win the Sena chief over for the smooth conduct of IPL matches. It is revealing that Andhra Pradesh ties have been given to Maharashtras venues. And it need not be restated how the Senas latest turn in the spotlight draws from the IPLs appalling conduct of its player auction. The point is that the BCCI sought to secure the tournament not through engagement with the authorities,but by placating the source of a notional threat. Similarly,the security assessment of Andhras cities has been made by ignoring both the ground situation and the state government.

The latest IPL controversy would be entertaining if it remained a mere distraction. Unfortunately it is not. Even before the Pune attack ended the post-26/11 calm,this country has been nuancing its security arrangements to combat knee-jerk advisories. Last summer,Englands squad pulled out of the badminton world championship in Hyderabad based on nothing more than a media report. Then,the attendance of other international teams and the presence of the Union home minister as a spectator showed up the English action as rash. It is this larger effort at managing security that the IPL has damaged,by unilaterally branding venues as safe and unsafe. Perhaps Lalit Modi had the right idea last year. He should offshore his tournament permanently.