IPL - wat else???

The end of another extremely successful edition of the IPL and yet there is so much left untold and unsaid. Right from the murkiness of the money flowing under the table, to the phone tapping, the chartered flights, etc... as time goes chances are that the list will get longer and longer... Is the BCCI going to bring down cricket for the second time in a row. Have we learnt no lessons frm the last scandal, a scandal that threatned to wipe out cricket.

No doubt what the BCCI has done for cricket in India is amazing, it truly shows what we are capable of as sportspeople and what we can achieve if are given the right resources and significant corporate backing, something that other sports bodies in India can learn from. But the fact is that corruption continues to be rampant and the guilty continue to get away. Harsh punishments were handed to those involved in the South African scandal, while in India those involved hid underground for a while, and have raised their heads to run cricket boards and run for parliament and prominent tv talk show hosts.

Lalit Modi no doubt is one of the most brilliant marketing minds in the world today. What he has managed to pull off with the IPL is astounding to say the least (Chances are that the success of the IPL will take cricket to the Olympics some day). Last year he managed to pull off the tournament in another country. But should he be the BCCI's fall guy?? Mr. Modi worked in a system that oozed corruption. It is hard to belive that he managed to pull off what he did (if the news reports are to be belived) all by himself. The IPL had a governing council with some of the post prominent names in cricket and polictics. One finds it hard to believe that nobody had the faintest idea of what what happening.

Whether or not Shashi Tharoor is guilty, the entire episode has opened a Pandora's box. Only time will tell how this effects the game of cricket. Those involved should not be allowed to get away this time around. There needs to be more transparency with BCCI, something that people have been saying for years. One of the largest sports bodies in the world cannot be a charity registered in Tamil Nadu with no accountability to the sport that it safeguards, the cricketers, its fans and the country...