Why The IPL Must Go On…Now

Champions Trophy to SA; What’s Next – World Cup to Australia?
Inadvertently the IPL has been thrust into a headlong battle. Cricket this season not only means that teams around the world will battle contests together but so will the organizers.
The IPL season 2, which is expected to go on despite the many hurdles, will be followed rather quickly by the second World Twenty20 in June and thereafter the Champions Trophy slated for September. While this is an enticing feast for cricket lovers, it will prove to be a competition, a part of which was not originally devised to be so.
The attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore did not lead to the Champions Trophy being awarded to South Africa. The decision was made belatedly last year that the tournament must move out of Pakistan. Pushed a year further, the Champions trophy could have well been staged by second choice Sri Lankan but for the monsoon rains as the ICC decided to ground that venue change as well. With fewer feasible options and England already playing host to the second edition of the World Twenty20, South Africa bagged the rights to the Champions Trophy.
With Centurion and Wanderers as chosen venues, the feasibility of less travel, next to no airplane affairs, and perfect weather conditions are being cited as favourable to the players, something that cannot be given to the same extent in the vast sub continent.
The precipitated crisis in Pakistan has spread to India as well and while Pakistan did host the Asia Cup, it failed to convince the ICC or its member nations of the security in hosting the Champions Trophy. Now the incident outside the Gaddafi stadium is causing a ripple effect in India that is going to the polls to add to the conundrum. With security now a major issue and also a political vote bank, the IPL season 2 has been hit hard by the Hoem Ministry repeatedly dilly dallying on the issue.
One could also say there is a fair bit of lobbying happening by states with the Centre using the subject of non availability of sufficient paramilitary forces to postpone the IPL to after the Lok Sabha elections so as to avoid any forbidden mishap as also to ensure the smooth elections which is of the primary agenda.
With the Asian sub continent now needing to prove that not all territory is terror prone like Pakistan is (although one cannot imagine which part of the world can be deemed safe in the present times), the IPL is a precursor to the World Cup in a couple of years time. The 2011 World Cup may still go out of Pakistan’s hands if things continue to stand the way they presently are but there is an ongoing salvage operation that the World Cup does not move out of the sub continent.
With the world watching, there are also serious concerns being raised that should something out of the normal happen during the IPL, it could further jeopardize India’s rights to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games. While those fears, expressed by foreign teams as well as certain sections of the India’s politicians, are being allayed by the sports ministry, it then becomes easy to see why a “domestic” tournament like the IPL is getting such unprecedented attention, perhaps no less than the World Cup.
With the venues now becoming a concern, the ICC is struggling to convince teams to tour and is reluctant to interfere in having to make those decisions for them simply because of the risks involved. With the recent reports that the Sri Lankan cricketers were not even insured speaks highly of just what a security lapse will cost to not only the nation or the cricket world but to those families who were already put through such turmoil.
Having said that, the market for IPL is huge. Despite the recession, the IPL has still had its sponsors and interested buyers, perhaps not the same extent, but in good measure to ensure that it must go on in light of future business plans. It could have cost blacklisted Pakistan heavily not to be hosting bilateral tours and now the Champions Trophy. One can only imagine the clamouring for hosting which countries like the UK (England), Australia and South Africa presently face.
With three enthralling tournament involving either foreign players or foreign teams, this is as much as about a competition of business as it is about sport.