IPL To Start In UAE End In India

The BCCI under N. Srinivasan, who himself is under a cloud of match fixing related to his franchise and his son-in-law, has turned the tables on all detractors, in a jijutsu move that is breath-taking in its audacity.

India don't play in Pakistan or UAE, Pakistani players are not allowed in the IPL.  Yet BCCI has managed to get UAE, the defacto home of Pakistani cricket to host IPL at least for Phase I of the tournament.  Phase II is apparently scheduled to be hosted in Bangladesh.  The IPL franchise is rapidly moving across the subcontinent and capturing the market everywhere.  Which Bangladeshi if he is honest, will say that he would rather watch the Bangladesh Twenty20 league rather than IPL matches hosted in Bangladesh.  Finally, UAE also happens to be the home of the ICC.  And BCCI has in a deft move, neutred all its detractors in the Western media by co-opting the ICC and hence all the Test boards by sharing a bit of the IPL booty with them via the ICC.

Recently the boards of West Indies and even Pakistan have admitted that the BCCI led structure of the ICC is better for them and that they are OK with the BIG THREE (Actually it is more like the sole SUPERPOWER (BCCI) and a couple of Associates, England and Australia, whose traditional role in the game lends prestige to the group of three, though India is the one in charge), realigning cricket as they see fit.  It is truly a case of if you can't beat them then join them for Boards like CSA, WICB and PCB. Of course the BCCI is not the pioneer in this type of self-serving actions.  For years the boards of England and Australia did the same, if at a much smaller and amateurish scale.  Afterall, why is the ICC even hosted in UAE.  Because the original home of the ICC, London, want to tax it quite heavily, while Dubai offered all the luxuries and conveninences of a modern city without any of the taxes.  The pretext that it was because UAE was closer to the subcontinent and more centrally located was, just that a pretext.  BCCI has had some good tutors, and when Indian politicians joined the BCCI, it was indeed bringing in another leauge of Machiavellis to the game.  They schooled everybody on how corruption is really done. 

The irony of the IPL, which is currently under a scandal cloud of match-fixing by insiders, and betting by players, and contacts with underworld bookies, Dons and syndicates, asking the home of much of this nefarious activities, i.e. Dubai and the UAE, to host the IPL is too delicious even for a fiction writer to dream up.  Maybe it is appropriate that the Gambler's lucky 7 is the number of this edition of the IPL, which may go down as the IPL when all pretext was dropped and IPL was recognized for what it has become, a money-spinning entertainment business, with only passing relation to an actual sport.