This ICL nonsense can go on no longer.
The BCCi cannot keep up this crap.
If they want to fuck over the owners of the ICL, go ahead, they can firebomb their houses for all I care.
I don’t give a shit what millionaires do to each other.
I care about cricket.
Obscure Japanese film directors.
And Natalie Portman.
Cricket needs Bangladesh.
Very few countries embrace cricket as fundamentally as Bangladesh.
Sure they are poor, and a little unstable, but so were Sri Lanka, and they gave us Aravinda and Kumar.
The big worry with the ICL and the 2020 revolution was that the little countries, where the players don’t already make millions, would lose their players.
New Zealand have already lost their best match winner, and few more than handy players.
Now Bangladesh are losing 6 players, at least.
The BCCi bullshit player bans aren’t working.
Australia is using the ICL as a superannuation centre.
England are using it as a way to boost their salary in the off season.
And journeymen cricketers from all over the globe are flocking there.
Why wouldn’t they.
It’s easy money, they ply their trade, and they probably get laid when they are over there.
These are all good things.
Taking six cricketers out of the Bangladesh national set up right now is the end of Bangladesh.
If these players go, and the ICC & BCCi cannot change their minds, that is it, you might as well kick Bangladesh out as well.
The banning of ICL cricketers reminds of the way a lot of countries deal with drugs.
There are two major parties in drugs.
The growers and importers on one side and the dealers and users on the other.
The Users will always want the product if it gives them what they want, the Dealers will always sell it because they make easy money from it.
They are the soft criminals, the hard criminals are the growers and the importers, that is where the real money and power is, that is where the root of the problem is.
But you can’t catch the importers, and you can’t touch the growers, so you go after the dealers.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, because as long as there are users, there will always be dealers.
And the BCCi can’t stop the addiction, especially when they have helped cultivate it.
right argument, wrong party to blame.. Instead of focussing so extensively on the BCCI, a better point to start would be why the players are so disillusioned with the BCB that they are willing to end their cricket careers to join a league that is not recognized by the ICC?What is it about Jamie Siddons that 6 of the current BD players are ready to chuck their careers?Habibul Basher may be past it, but Aftab Ahmed, hero of Sophia Gardens, deciding to chuck it points to a deeper malaise within the BCB.. And isnt it a fact that the BCB was dissolved not so long ago because of malpractises?Recognizing the ICL will not change status quo – players disillusioned by the powers to be in their respective countries will still gravitate towards the ICL as the IPL requires the players to be sanctioned by their Boards.Cheers,
i think the leagues are the way of the future, like in soccer, with the scope of matches between national sides reducing
Homer, I never once in this article said the ICL should be recignised.The ICL does not have to be recignised, but players who play in it, should be allowed to play for their country. These are not two mutually exclusive things. To say that Jamie Siddons has anything to do with this makes no sense, they aren’t leaving to play under a better coach, they are leaving to make alot of money. Shane Bond didn’t leave new zealand because john bracewell annoyed him, he did so to provide for his family. The BCB can’t compete with the ICL, but why should they have to?Why can’t players play for both?Players play in exhibition games that aren’t ICC sanctioned for money, but they are still allowed to play for their country. The BCB may be a flaming pile of turd, but you are missing the point on that as well, the new zealand players didn’t leave because of the board, they left because they had two options, play for their country on limited pay when they are in the best 11, or go to a competition that will pay them for for 6 weeks pay than most of them get in a year, and if the money was enough to Entice a middle class country like New Zealand, that sort of money could change the lives of families in Bangladesh. Why can’t these players play both?
“Rather, we feel that it is the responsibility of the Bangladesh Cricket Board to make playing for our national team and in our domestic leagues so attractive, financially and from a prestige point of view, that our top players do not opt for other alternatives. We feel that domestic cricket is still woefully under-funded and first-class cricketers are paid a pittance. Earnings are substantially better for national team cricketers but are not commensurate with what their counterparts earn in other countries. Also, if the BCB is not in a position to pay as much as other boards, it should at least allow cricketers to earn through product endorsements, which they cannot do at this point. All said and done, the Bangladesh Cricket Board should wake up and realise that unless it can provide better remunerations and better facilities to our players, especially the top players, more and more of them will opt for alternative leagues like the ICL. Instead of complaining about it and demonising the players, it is up to the board to keep them here. “http://www.newagebd.com/2008/sep/16/edit.html
Homer, All of those things are in place in New Zealand, but the BCB and NZC do not have the money to make domestic players, and fringe players, and even occasionally star players better off fianancially than the ICL, only the big boys can do this. My question to you, is why can players not play in the ICL, as an unrecognised league, and still play for their countries?
UJ,I have no issues with players playing for money – infact I welcome it as it loosens the grip administocrats have on them..That said, I dont think, in BD’s case, that it is about money alone.. I beleieve that there is genuine resentment amongst the players over the way they are being treated by the Board ( the BCB, not the BCCI).Cheers,
Homer, you may be right, it may not be about money alone, but money started it, and money will end it.
Think about it – the ICL was a financial disaster last year.. For them to be financially viable, given the open hostility of the BCCI, wil take a miracle ( or some very deep pockets)..And yet we have 15 BD players hitching their futures to the ICL.. And also understand that the contracts are 3 year contracts – for kids like Sakib Ul Hassan, its career suicide..And yet we have players leaving in droves… Surely there have to be factors other than money to prompt such a move?Cheers,
Would they be leaving for less money?
its an option available to them UJ.. If that option was not available, they would have had to grin and bear it or quit in protest ( and be damned by the Board and the public).Cheers,
But what if the option was for them to be able to play in both?Would that be a better system or a worse system?
You would think it would be the better system if they were allowed to play in both, but I have my own doubts..For starters, the ICL would have to be subservient to the FTP because of player availability.. And for a TV conglomerate, that may not necessarily work.It will be good for the players, but you can bet your bottom dollar that, even in those circumstances, this conflict of interest ( between country and league) will come up ( especially if the difference in remuneration is significant.Cheers,
[Apologies for ignoring the cricket and instead critiqing your obviously metaphorical drug analysis. I have interacted with too many hypocrites recently and a rant's been festering.] You are letting the users off the hook. The same people who buy FairTrade coffee wouldn’t think twice about ingesting enough marching powder to grout a bathroom. It is no coincidence that both Colombia and Afghanistan are home to decades long civil wars.Without demand there is no market. Ooh. That must mean I’m blaming the people who are watching Twenty20 over Tests for the current mess.
Jrod,Lets take your utopian view for a bit.If you can believe that the ICL would never pressure players to skip an ICC event to take place in their games then you can believe anything.They have done nothing to date to indicate they have a hint of integrity.
Lisa, I am not sure i understand what you mean, that coffee drinkers are coke fiends in disguise?LB, Haven’t seen truck loads of Integrity for Ca, BCCi or ICC either. And the totalitarian style is making cricketers leave their countries. Why not say that all players who sign with the ICL, can only do so if they have a clause in their contract that when they are needed for National Duty they play for their country. Or we could just continue to let players leave world cricket to play in some obscure tournament no one outside of India really watches.
”Why not say that all players who sign with the ICL, can only do so if they have a clause in their contract that when they are needed for National Duty they play for their country.”Do you honestly think that would work?The only line I’m hearing about how ICL can in anyway be trusted is that the ICC / BCCI are badies.
Is it better to try it, or just lose struggling nations?
There’s no easy solution.But it’s probably a bit early to give up on the tactic of trying to freeze them, and all associated with them, out.But I wouldn’t be rushing to do business with the cunts.
Sorry for confusion Jrod – I over-edited*. I dislike neither coffee drinkers nor cocaine users per se, don’t believe they are necessarily the same people and certainly don’t blame either/both for all the world’s ills**. I just get irritated by people who claim to care about equity in world trade and buy FairTrade products (e.g. coffee, + tea, chocolate, cotton, clothes etc) but don’t think twice about the devastating consequences of the drugs trade on the ground in places like Colombia and Afghanistan when they’re getting their hit. Obviously more Colombia in this case, since you get fewer bourgeois junkies than cokeheads. I have nothing against drugs per se, ‘t’would be equally hypocritical, but reckon first world users cannot be absolved of a major slice of responsibility for the social problems (some worse than others, such as the funding of war lords and insurrectionists like Farc and the Taliban) that occur all along the supply chain. I am differentiating to a certain extent between illegal crop drugs and designer drugs, because production of the former is mostly confined to unstable non-developed countries – except grass, obviously – while the latter is more of a local thing.[This all sounds more sanctimonious than it's s'posed to. It started out as a rant about cokehead hypocrisy brought on by recent proximity, plus I'm not sure where I stand on the ICL/BCCI issue, so wanted to avoid that. Sorry. I'll contain myself in the future.]* Look at the length of this to see why. ** Although it might be in better shape if coca and opium were treated like coffee.
Freezing them out worked well for world series cricket, lets hope Zee Tv isn’t as stubborn as Kerry.
Funnily enough, the freezing out of the WSC wasn’t anywhere near as orchestrated as this one. It was in Australia, but not so much elsewhere. It was before the ICC started doing anything more than getting pissed though.For example, Hadlee was able to join up for a series and then come back and be the NZ side no problems. And from memory the same with the Pakistanis.
Whoa! What happened here? This must be a serious issue because, folks, you all forgot to bring the funny. Isn’t this meant to be a comic site? Albeit with serious intent, but couldn’t we rant out our ill-informed opinions with a few jokes thrown in? I personally have never been to Bangladesh, have never bought cocain from Afghanistan or Columbia (although I have bought it in Peru), and know less about Jamie Siddons than his dentist. True story.
Whoa! What happened here? This must be a serious issue because, folks, you all forgot to bring the funny. Isn’t this meant to be a comic site? Albeit with serious intent, but couldn’t we rant out our ill-informed opinions with a few jokes thrown in? I personally have never been to Bangladesh, have never bought cocain from Afghanistan or Columbia (although I have bought it in Peru), and know less about Jamie Siddons than his dentist. True story.
Whoa! What happened here? This must be a serious issue because, folks, you all forgot to bring the funny. Isn’t this meant to be a comic site? Albeit with serious intent, but couldn’t we rant out our ill-informed opinions with a few jokes thrown in? I personally have never been to Bangladesh, have never bought cocain from Afghanistan or Columbia (although I have bought it in Peru), and know less about Jamie Siddons than his dentist. True story.
I think you’re making way too much out of it.. Bangladesh is no New Zealand.. The pool of close-to-international-quality players would be much much greater in Bangladesh. Six players, some of them from years past, is not a huge, insurmountable setback for them.
See? John gets it. “The pool of close-to-international-quality players would be much much greater in Bangladesh.” Hilarious!The pool of players who squeal like frightened kittens whenever Mitchell Johnson bowls at them is probably also much much greater.
See? John gets it. “The pool of close-to-international-quality players would be much much greater in Bangladesh.” Hilarious!The pool of players who squeal like frightened kittens whenever Mitchell Johnson bowls at them is probably also much much greater.
See? John gets it. “The pool of close-to-international-quality players would be much much greater in Bangladesh.” Hilarious!The pool of players who squeal like frightened kittens whenever Mitchell Johnson bowls at them is probably also much much greater.
John,NZ “A” gave Aus “A” a good pants down the other day.Someone like Angry Mark Gillespie or Iain O’Briend, while not really world class would be better than anything shaking round on Bangles domestic cricket.Anyway it’s 14 of them that have sold thir soles.
As far as I am concerned B’desh cricket was going nowhere even with those 6+ players. To compare them to NZ is insulting to NZ! Anyway I think the real issue facing ICC/BCCI/Rest of the world is not B’desh, but really what is happening with Pakistan and the Windies. Most of the good players in Pakistan are already moving towards the ICL (did someone say Yousuf??) and in conjunction with what is already happening in Pak this is going to hit them real hard.World cricket might *want* B’desh but can survive with some of its players in the ICL. What it really *needs* is a strong Pak and Windies team. Instead of focussing on China and the Olympics, perhaps this issue shd be dealt with first.