Penny wise, pound foolish

How did the BCCI become the richest cricketing Board in the history of cricket?

• By shrewd investments in the ad-friendly versions of the game
  
• By cutting corners
  
• By caring for the paying public
  

In the words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.

We already know how the BCCI has tapped into (and plundered beyond recognition) the Twenty20 cash cow. They came late to the party - incredibly, India had played just ONE T20 game before the World Cup in South Africa - but when they did come, they came hard and fast.

Left behind in the wake has been the paying public, as catering to the television is of paramount importance. However, you'd think that a Board so rich would not worry about cutting corners. But it does and it is shocking how callous it all seems.

Aakash Chopra talks about the state of the game on his blog on CricInfo. In a recent post he mentions the paucity of balls in the first-class matches conducted by the cash-rich entity. Either they are making money by cutting corners...or someone, somewhere, is making a lot of money selling cricket balls.

We are told that the balls are too expensive, and hence we must make do with some other local brand that is white in colour, to get the feel of the white ball. We would be given an odd Kookaburra or two every now and then in the interim. I am struggling to get my head around this decision. Yes the balls are expensive, and must therefore be used sparingly, but definitely not as scarcely. If money is such an issue with the association then how the same association managed (if a newspaper article is to be believed) to spend Rs 40 lakh on buying tracksuits for the cops and another obscene amount (nearly Rs 28 lakh) for an AGM totally stumps me.

Sadly, for all of us concerned, the entity which endorses the product by buying into it - the paying public - is the one being shortchanged.