You don't know what you're doing

On the eve of the inaugural IPL season, the organisers have scored an astonishing own-goal by refusing Cricinfo, the world's premier cricket website, accreditation for the event. The reason given by Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, is that the portal rights for the six-week-long tournament have already been sold to "an American company" which has exclusive rights to reports and pictures. There's just one problem. Not a soul has heard of this company, and the whole situation is akin to debarring the BBC from the London Olympics in favour of a crew operating out of a flat in the Isle of Dogs.

Cricinfo has 10 million unique users, and on big-match days, like the recent Perth Test between Australia and India, over three million of them log in to follow the ball-by-ball commentary. You'd think that a nascent event would want that sort of following. Apparently not.

Modi, who runs the show much without brooking any opposition, has already had to back down in disputes with newspapers and Indian TV channels, most of whom were appalled by the terms and conditions in the coverage document initially sent to media houses. But on the matter of websites, he remains intransigent.

As things stand, you have a laughable situation where general news portals like yahoo and msn will have access to match pictures, while Cricinfo is denied them. Sambit Bal, Cricinfo's editor, wrote: "It has been argued that what we do conflict with the IPL's commercial interests. In other words, as long as we are around, as long as cricket fans see us as the most comprehensive and credible source for news, views and scores for cricket, the BCCI's ambitions for its own website are unlikely to be fulfilled. They are missing something important here: Independence and credibility are vital ingredients for any media organisation. A cricket board can not be expected to rise above its own interests."

So, what of this magic portal which has bought the Internet rights? It's owned by Live Current Media, but as of now there's no URL for a fan to click on. When I enquired with a friend who has years of experience researching web trends, he said: "These guys are third-rate for sure. They own easily recognisable domain names like brazil.com, malaysia.com and even cricket.com, all of which have amazing traffic potential. But they have done nothing much except upload basic content -- some ads, some links to hotel booking, flight tickets, etc. If you check their sucess, as measured by traffic on recognised monitor sites like alexa, their rank is 33289,449279392. To give you and idea of what that means, Cricinfo's worldwide rank is 164.

"Obviously, these guys book highly valuable domain names and then do nothing about them. The question is why would they do that? Why would anyone register indonesia.com and do nothing? This is not a content company or a portal company. In our world, we call this the business of the internet bottom-feeder."

In recent weeks, it's become common for disillusioned supporters at Stamford Bridge to chant 'You don't know what you're doing' in Avram Grant's direction. This, mind you, is a man who has led Chelsea to the brink of a European final, while clinging on to Manchester United's coat-tails in the league. In a more sensible world, those cruel jibes would be directed at those who see themselves as creators of cricket's new world, those so drunk on self-importance that they don't give a toss about the most important constituency - the fans.

Comments

[Srini]

The whole IPL thing is a joke. I bought Setanta just to watch it and am bored already after watching one innings. If the greed of the Indian board and the ignorance of the India people want to bring down the sport to a baseball style hit-out, with cheerleaders and sheltered perverts staring at them then so be it. If you think 13 sixes and a hundred within twenty overs is all cricket is about then you really don't understand the beauty of the game. It's just a boring format that looks set to drag on and on.

The only winners are the Aussies who are paid over the odds and if you look at their faces they are just happy to take the money and run. Badrinath, Raina et al. will learn nothing from facing Brett Lee for a total of 5 balls and attempting to slog each one.

[Dan Patel]

This whole IPL excercise is simply based on a deep rooted inferiorty complex that most Indians suffer from in India.

I am of Indian descent from Uganda,where my grandfather settled in 1903.My mother was born there and so was my father.

In our little town of Jinja in Uganda we had a little Indian cricket team called Indian Recreaction Club (later to be called Jinja Recreation Club after independence).4 players represented East Africa in the 60s from our club.

I remember so vividely aged 10 or 12 when our team went to Kampala,the capital to play the pure all white team some Sundays.

The whites were all third rate provincials in civil service in the capital.

At lunch time,the Indians were always 'sent away' to the bazaar to have their lunch while the whites had their leisurely lunch of roast with all the trimmings at leisure.

This was apartheid at its best.

Not to be outdone,our very patriotic elders decided to lay on the most sumptuous buffet of Indian delicacies EVERY times the English provincial 'sahibs' visited out ground.

Know what ! they were very politely asked to go sit in their little Morris Minors parked besides our elders' Mercedes',Pontiacs, and Chevrolets and eat their spam sandwiches!!

The point of all this is that the Indians in India are totally besotted by all these 'Phoren' players with not much talent but their lily white skins.

KP just 3 weeks ago declared that he would not play for IPL for any money because he was so patriotic???,yet as of today he has completely changed his stance.

[Dan Patel]

Rights 'sold' to an American company.

This on top of Washington Redskins' cheerleaders,as if there are not enough pretty girls in India.

What next?

Maybe a new national anthem 'God save America' penned by Bhappi Lahiri and stars and stripes flying everywhere.

I am astonished by how how crass the Indians can get.They simply seem love to everything Phoren!

Crass, Bollywood cricket at its best.

Deniis Compton and Duleep Singh must both be turning in their graves tonight 'fer shure' as say in good 'ol U S of A.

[Marius Roodt]

Its clear that these IPL clowns have no respect or passion for our game. They are in it for the money.

Mind you, Kerry packer was too, and he probably changed the game for the better.

[King Cricket]

If the IPL succeeds in spite of this, we'll know it has legs.

The man's still an idiot though.

[SanjayN]

I just checked the site that Dileep mentions and "bottom feeder" is a perfect description. Apparently, they're a Canadian company but our donkey, Modi, told us that the rights were sold to an "American" company.

I doubt if Modi ever witnessed the rise of cricinfo as we did from its humble IRC beginnings. He isn't a foot soldier, simply a business man whose aim is to make a lot of money for himself and his cronies. The likes of SRK may have sleepless nights upon learning that few tickets have been sold for the Knight Riders' opening game but as Modi said himself "I will sleep peacefully".

The man has no conscience and makes Dalmiya look angelic.

I also doubt that Modi realizes how much damage he is doing to the name of Indian cricket and its administration. Already, we read about a survey showing cricketers are ready to strike and have lost faith in the ICC - and we all know that Modi, BCCI and his thugs heavily influence the ICC. Indian cricket is seen with an angry eye all around the world, and Modi et al are completely oblivious.

Or perhaps they are, but they simply don't care. By the time anything is done to stop this dangerous juggernaut, they'll ahve personally filled their boots.

[Yogesh]

I do not know if to agree or disagree with Cricinfo's decision to still try to cover IPL. Creating a portal is one issue but it is a totally different issue to get good people to comment and write. Cricinfo has reputation and in an era where increasingly more people keep track of information via internet, hard to see where Modi gets his brilliant ideas !!

[Homer]

The one question that has not been asked in this entire debate ( here and elsewhere) is the role of the franchise owners in the whole media kerkuffle.

I will be very surprised if they ( the franchise owners) had no say in the matter.

As regards Cricinfo - the BCCI is ostensibly pumping in $50 million into its website ( and the IPL site) I gather. Plus, the various franchise owners have their own team websites.Could it just be that the owners see contention in the content being disseminated by Cricinfo versus that carried by their own team sites?

Questions questions...

Cheers

[Patel]

I'm not sure whom to blame the BCCI or PTI who want to cover the even but under protest, whatever that means. It's about time someone stands up to the 800lb Gorilla that the BCCI has come to, the sooner the better and it would do a world of good if the whole media boycotts this event, and teaching people like Modi that none is bigger than the game or fans.