I don’t want to get fined’: How India took the ‘world’ out of World Cup
Daniel Brettig
The Age chief cricket writer
October 15, 2023 — 2.43pm
“It didn’t seem like an ICC event to be brutally honest. It seemed like a bilateral series; it seemed like a BCCI event.”
With these words, Pakistan’s affable coaching director Mickey Arthur articulated what so many in cricket have been thinking about this World Cup.
Arthur, the well-travelled former coach of Australia, delivered his verdict after India dominated Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday night.
The home side’s comfortable victory was watched by a crowd of more than 100,000 Indian partisans – even Collingwood’s MCG preliminary final against Greater Western Sydney was more equitably attended. Certainly, last year’s T20 World Cup meeting at the MCG was all the more vibrant for its share of Pakistani supporters.
Arthur again: “I didn’t hear Dil Dil Pakistan coming through the microphones too often tonight.”
But there was no surprise here. This World Cup is a global event in name only. Realistically, it is a tournament staged by and for India, its cricket board, the BCCI, and its all-powerful secretary, Jay Shah. Unlike virtually all global sporting events in this day and age, there is no local organising group, only the BCCI itself.
Back in March, Australia played a Test match in Ahmedabad that was effectively used as the excuse for a Modi rally on the opening day. India’s prime minister was driven around the ground on a kitsch chariot, accompanied by his Australian opposite number Anthony Albanese.
A host of the cricket world’s most senior figures were in town for the occasion. Asked at the time how preparation for the World Cup was coming along, namely how long it would be before the schedule was announced, so fans could plan their travel, none could give anything more than a shrug, or words to the effect of “that’s up to Jay”.
In the end, the tournament program was not made public until the end of June, little more than three months before the first ball. It is little wonder then that in a game where large travelling supporter contingents have become customary, there are next to none for the round-robin phase of the World Cup.
Even the Barmy Army, England’s huge supporter group, is only offering packages taking in the semi-finals and final. There simply wasn’t time or bandwidth to offer anything more. This stands in contrast to how, for world cups dating back to the late 1990s, the fixtures have been known at least a year in advance, sometimes two.
Once the tournament starts, however, everyone should have a clear idea of what is happening, right? Wrong.
Much comment was passed on how, before the opening game between England and New Zealand in Ahmedabad, there had been no opening festivities to speak of. India’s most beloved of all players, Sachin Tendulkar, walked out to the middle of a near-empty stadium with the trophy, and that was basically that.
As it turned out, all the glitz was being saved for the most political of match-ups, that between India and Pakistan. Plans for an extravagant display of dancing, music and celebration, intended to showcase Indian talent to the world, were not shared with the ICC or broadcasters until a few days before the game.
This, according to sources with knowledge of planning, speaking anonymously due to the confidential nature of discussions, led to a stand-off.
Who would pay the enormous licence fees for the broadcast of snippets from nearly 50 Bollywood tunes? Certainly not the BCCI, and neither the ICC nor the broadcasters had budgeted for such a late expense. Instead, the ceremony went ahead without being broadcast at all.
Not that any of it – the lack of neutral crowds, the chaotic organisation, the overt politicisation – matters a jot to the BCCI. As cricket’s financial behemoth, the usual rules of return on investment simply do not apply to it.
All the while, there is fear. Of getting off side with India, of being targeted for retribution by the BCCI, of being rounded upon by the kinds of forces that pushed the respected Pakistani broadcaster Zainab Abbas out of India for past comments on social media.
“Look I don’t think I can comment on that just yet. I don’t want to get fined,” was how Arthur deflected a question about the lack of visas allowed for Pakistani media and supporters.
For India’s splendid team, that is a shame. Rohit Sharma’s men played wondrous cricket in trouncing first Australia and then Pakistan in remarkably similar fashion. On each occasion, Jasprit Bumrah – this time with a mind-bending slower ball to defeat Mohammad Rizwan – Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja were at the centre of it all, giving nothing away and then capitalising on the pressure.
Should they go on to win the World Cup on home soil, as India also did with Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and company in 2011, no one will begrudge the excellence of the players.
But there will be the unmistakable sense of a supposedly global event that was appropriated for domestic agendas, at the expense of looking outward.
Already, the most common description of this World Cup among cricket officialdom sounds disconsolate: “A lost opportunity.”
