BREAKING NEWS: Sreesanth worth Rs One Crore

India team's official dancer may not have played the World Cup, but his on-field antics in South Africa has definitely helped him raise his price in the market. Percept D Mark last year signed him for Rs 15 lakh, but this year his price has been raised by Rs 85 lakh. Rs One crore, yes, that's the minimum guarantee money that this Kerala wonderkid is getting for a year now.

According to sources Yuvraj Singh is all set to become Indian team's vice captain. Not a bad investment by Percept D Mark here. He can easily become a captain in the next two years now, if everything goes according to the plan. With Sahara as the team's sponsors and Percept having a close relatioinship with them, I wonder who the official selectors of the Indian cricket team are?

Well, it's the same company which hasn't paid money to former Indian hockey captain Dilip Tirkey...

Out of frying pan, into the fire

With India's World Cup honeymoon in the West Indies over in just a week's time, it's time for some accountability session as the Board ofControl for Cricket in India meet in India's financial capital Mumbai on April 6 and 7 where the fate of under fire coach Greg Chappell would also come up for discussion.
The Indian team hasn't arrived yet, giving enough time for the Indian media to speculate and faff regarding the future of the Indian cricket. The team, which is in the Caribbean after its exit from the World Cup last Friday, is in a state of anxiety.
Suddenly the action has shifted to Indian shores from the Caribbean and Indian journalists covering the World Cup in Trinidad are the only source of information for the team members apart from their families back home.
Journalists there too are busy catching up the latest gossip back home and then passing it to their faithful friends in the Indian team.
No one can hide the fact that there's rift in Indian team after their ouster from the World Cup. The endorsement wars too have come to light recently when a lawyer claimed that cola drink major Pepsi were behind Sourav Ganguly's sacking as the former Indian captain endorsed arch rival brand Coke.
There is gossip floating around about how an sms sent by a journalist to Ganguly in Port-of-(S)Pain, which reached Virender Sehwag by mistake,created a 'furore'. The fact that players like Sehwag and Dravid overreacted to it suggests that there's tension prevailing between the members of the team too.
It was on Monday that media gathered in the team hotel expecting an elaborate press conference by Anil Kumble to announce his hanging of boots, but that too was called off and now has been postponed. Players are tight-lipped in the Caribbean and are mutely examining the situation back home.
BCCI chief Sharad Pawar, a federal minister in the Indian Government, has said that there will now be two cricket teams for India - India Seniors and India Blue. While the seniors will consist of the more experienced players, India blue will also get a chance at international games.
According to Pawar: "We will sit with former captains like Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and get their advise about Indian cricket basedon their past experiences. We will discuss in detail India's World Cup performance.
"We will see the team manager's report and also ask his personal observations during the tour. We will also give a chance to the coach and listen to what he has to say and discuss about the captaincy as well."
Captaincy conundrum
A top BCCI official, on conditions of anonymity, said that the board is considering a major overhaul in the team. There's also speculation about the future of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. Talks of Yuvraj Singh being appointed as the Indian captain too is rife. (His managers - Percept D Mark) are backing his case strongly. Last year they gifted him a black Mercedes when he was appointed as Vice Captain by them. They don't want their investment to go haywire. Maybe on being a captain Yuvi gets a Bentley!)
But, a lot of Indians want Sourav Ganguly to be back as captain. They think that it would help the team to get back their killers.
Coaching crisis
The Board is still open to the idea of a foreign coach and may even talk to Dav Whatmore, Tom Moody and John Wright. Former Indian cricketer Mohinder Amarnath and Kirti Patil's name too is in the running. However, all these things will be discussed when the Board meets with former Indian captains.
Present Indian coach Greg Chappell has already said that the side's failure to execute the plans was responsible for the debacle in theWorld Cup and it's a collective responsibility. "I'm happy that I've done the best job I could do, and so did the coaching staff and support staff. The planning was good, the preparation was good, butthe execution on the day was not," he was quoted as saying. Chappell has also added that India haven't won an overseas tournament since 1985. (Basically he wants to say that India's loss is nothing new. It's generic in nature.)
"There are obviously some reasons, but I'm not prepared to go into them at this stage," he said. (Expect some brickbats when the team arrives. Meanwhile, Greg Chappell is busy planting stories in the media in his favour. Sports journos too are showing their allegiance to him by following such stories in a big manner. It seems like cricketer's the sense and sensibilities of the media too has gone for a toss.)

WHAT OUR BIGGIES SAY ABOUT THEM?
S Venkataraghavan: "It is disappointing, pathetic and frustrating. The team members lacked everything, including the fighting qualities. They have to sit, review and analyse such performances. The concerned should be held responsible," he said.
Gundappa Vishwanath: "Losing two matches out of three speaks volumes about their lack of application and determination. It's a shame that they failed to qualify for the SuperEight." Abhishek Bachchan: "I am disappointed like any other Indian, but do not beat them up. They tried their best. I know what failure is like and they will rise again. Give them a chance."

Advertising pangs
With the Indian team's ouster, advertising industry has been the worst hit. Sponsors and advertisers are withdrawing their cricket-centric publicity campaigns. According to industry insiders Pepsi, Hutch, Hero Honda and LG have been the worst hit as they had to take off their big marketing campaigns planned around the World Cup. Pepsi has pulled out its 'Ladega To Jeetega' ad campaign featuringSachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag. Similarly, other companies including Hutch and VISA have been discontinued. Reebok,which featured several cricketers in its ads, has also taken a u-turn. According to industry sources, a Sunfeast biscuit advertisement featuring Sachin Tendulkar is being replaced by Shah Rukh Khan's take. The ad industry has suffered losses ranging to nearly Rs 200 crore (1USD = Rs45 approx). The official broadcaster too has taken a hard hit. Expecting to raise Rs 800 crore in ad revenues, industry analysts say that it will incur at least 60 per cent in losses as now they have to sell the slots in much cheaper rates.The Indian tourism industry too has suffered approximately Rs 50 crorein revenues. Indian fans, expecting Indian team to reach the SuperEight, had planned their travel to the Caribbean in April. But India's early exit from the Cup has made it sure that all the bookings were cancelled. According to an industry insider, "Travel agents had already done the booking for them in the West Indies. Now they cannot be cancelled. So we have to suffer the losses."

FULL CIRCLE

India has seen many Black Fridays and Manic Mondays, but many Indians believe that last Friday was the darkest and blackest of them all. It’s when our Great Indian Dream Team choked, once again. But is there anything new in this?
The Men In Blue are a band of chokers once they jet set to any other country. This too is nothing new. Perhaps, in Indian mythology, going to a distant land – saat samundar paar - was considered inauspicious maybe the reason for it was that India was a ‘Sone ki chidiya’, so there was no reason to set afoot in foreign shores. Our cricketers too follow the same rules. Exploit cricket on home soil as gold to the hilt. That’s it!
It was six months back when a senior cricket journalist, who has devoted his life to cricket more than what a cricketer would have, said that it might be an Aussie ploy to send Greg Chappell here and completely destroy Indian cricket before the World Cup. Well, I shrugged it off then, but conditions prevailing around us now make me think that there was some grain of truth in that too.
However, India’s loss has brought smiles among a small stratum of Indian society comprising few sports desk journalists and a lot more sportspersons who have always lived under the shadow of the great game of cricket and its demigods. For whom glory comes just once in four years, when they embark on a journey to either Asian Games or Olympics or the World Cup. That’s the only time they get their share of media pie.
For the desk journalists, it’s back to routine jobs meaning a lot more time to spend with their respective families, getting sound sleep and no more early morning drinks with colleagues on the parking lots of their offices.
For our cash-strapped sportspersons, India’s loss means a lot. They can live on hope that sponsors would turn to them for funding. Some of the world champions that India has produced in recent years in other sports (I won’t name them though), are without even a single sponsor. They can pray to God that they might be able to lay their hands on the sponsor’s booty after India’s world cup debacle. But, with crossed fingers.
“Nobody can say anything against cricket in India. It’s dangerous. All this madness and anger is transient. Within no time, India will forget them and they will be heroes again and darling of the sponsors,” said a shooter on conditions of anonymity to me. “They have mastered the art of luring fans, so performance doesn’t matter to them. They live for money and die for it. Fans won’t even get time to show their anger, when BCCI would change the captain and coach and soon the topic of discussion would be the current changes in cricket team rather than why they failed. It’s a full circle. It starts with India’s debacle in the World Cup and then consumes four long years of the build-up until the next cricket World Cup happens where India fails once again.”
Can you stop it?