Icon players in IPL teams do not make sense

Mar 17th, 2008

Sriram Ranganathan

Comments (24)

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India, Australia, Domestic Cricket, Players

All said and done, if a player in a cricket team is declared as an icon, I would assume in all sincerity that he must possibly be the team's most valuable player in cricketing terms. Whether he bats or bowls or both is a different matter; what I would assume is that in his own field of cricketing skill, he would be a match-winner in his own right.

Then I look at the IPL teams in which for the 20-20 format, we have Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag as icons. I do not include Yuveraj Singh in the list because even considering his performances of recent times in Australia; he is the one proven success in the 20-20 format and belongs in the category of players I mentioned above - those who would be match winners in their own right. Remember, right now the IPL is just a 20-20 tourney!

Tendulkar and Ganguly haven't played a 20-20 yet; Rahul Dravid, if memory serves right, has played one 20-20 in South Africa; Sehwag has played many and was even part of the recent world cup winning team, but he can by no stretch of imagination be considered a master in 20-20. In fact, in the Indian 20-20 team itself, the fact that he keeps his spot in the squad is not because of his mind-blowing exploits on the field of play but because the selectors are still holding onto their belief, despite the player's record, that he is a born ODI (50/50 and 20/20) batsman. Without Dravid and Ganguly in the team (and am not suggesting here that it is because of this reason), the team has seen unprecedented success in the recent past.

So it was rather ridiculous to see the icon status being bestowed on the above named, for the simple reason that none of them have earned it in any way whatsoever. Yuveraj has earned it and when he stands up and says 'I am the icon of my team', one doesn't feel the desire to laugh. With the idiotic clause of the icon player automatically getting 15% more money than the maximum bid attracted by any player in the icon's team, the icons have raked in incomes that they might or might not deserve, time will tell.

That is Indian cricket for you, where Rohit Sharma, Uthappa and Gambhir - proven at the 20-20 level and with a World Cup in hand - fight for the scraps while the superstars roll up in their limousines, take their money bags with an indulgent smile and laugh all the way to the bank. In fact, not just Indian cricket; that is India for you.

From the icons' point of view, it is a win-win situation. Actually reflecting the entry of the Bollywood 'baadshahs' into the cricketing world, the icons are now like the Sanjay Dutts and Akshay Kumars who are assured of their money because they are the Sanjay Dutts and Akshay Kumars, irrespective of whether the movie is a magical 'Munnaibhai' or some nondescript nonsense that disappears without a trace. The actors get their money to be in the movie; the success of the movie is not their headache.

I somehow would have expected more dignity from the icons, none among them who could be considered poor by any standards of imagination and all of who have reputations and get adulation that foreign cricketers with multiple World Cups would kill to get. Rather than getting a million because Ishant drew 900,000 USD, their iconic status in Indian cricket - earned over a period of time as compared to being the icon of the Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians because they are the Tendulkars and Gangulys - should have made their self-respect demand them to get their dues as did every other member in the auction. There were quite a few laughs among my friends about the Pontings, Warnes, Husseys and McGraths going for a song, but I wonder how much the icons would have gone for in a free bid. We will never know if it would be a million or they ended up embarrassingly at the wrong end of the bid ladder!

In that sense, I hold much more respect for VVS, the icon of the Hyderabad IPL team, who drew a much smaller bid after giving up his icon status. Media reports suggested that he was offered the carrot of captaincy, but as someone who has lived in Hyderabad for 8 years now, I can assure you that there was no way the team franchises could have made someone else the captain and gotten away with it, if home support counts for anything.

From the franchise owner's point of view, I guess they really had no choice, with the BCCI already having hit upon this icon idea as an integral part of their league. With the anticipated profits from the IPL league over a period of time, I guess they can afford to give an extra million or two to the Tendulkars, Gangulys and Dravids; if they don't recover the cost in terms of the off-field (advertising) prowess of these icons, they can just write off the amounts in the 'bad but necessary debts' column.

The IPL starts off April 18 and I am sure it will be a tremendous tournament with some great entertainment value. I wonder which of the icons will earn their keep!

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Reader Comments

1. Why cannot BCCI devise a special scheme for these ICONS on a LARGE pay per run ($ 1000 each) or a pay per wicket, ($ 10,000 each). That way, we could say they earned it.