BCCI puts Team India sponsorship up for grabs

With its deal with Sahara coming to an end next month, the BCCI on Monday invited bids from companies through a tender notice for sponsoring four Indian squads, including the much sought-after men's outfit.
The tender notice, issued by BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, called for firms to bid for sponsorship of the men's, women's, India A and India under 19 teams, indicating the documents would be available from May 24 for a non-refundable payment of Rs 5 lakh.
It said all bidders need to fulfill the eligibility criteria set up by the Board as well as other requirements as mentioned in the bid document.
Submission of the bids also has to be done as per conditions outlined, the Board also reserved its rights "to cancel or amend the entire bidding process at any stage and to reject any and/or all bids without providing any reasons, including calling for a re-tender."
BCCI's deal with existing sponsors Sahara is set to come to a close next month.
Sahara, which has supported the Indian team for several years as its main sponsor, recently bid successfully for the new Pune IPL franchise for a staggering Rs 1700 crore.
Sahara will review its sponsorship to the Indian cricket team, Group chief Subroto Roy had said after winning the IPL franchise bid on March 23.
Sahara had bagged the sponsorship for the Indian cricket team for Rs 400 crore for a four-year period ending December 2009, and had agreed to continue for six more months as BCCI could not find any sponsors.
"No, it will not. Only thing we will see is our continuation of sponsorship to the Indian cricket team. We will sit on that and we will discuss on that. But on all other sports nothing will be affected," Roy had said on the impact of the Group's aggressive bidding to acquire the IPL's Pune franchise.
Asserting that the Group, which is also sponsoring the Indian hockey team, would seriously consider (limiting) exposure to the BCCI and the women's cricket, he said then that the Group "will take a conscious decision about it."

Sticky wicket: Board pitching it all wrong

New Delhi: You name it and the Indian cricket board (BCCI) has a committee for it. Right from the more important Selection, Finance and Marketing committees, it also has one called the 'Museum Committee'.
The only one missing from an exhaustive list is the Ground and Pitches Committee, which the BCCI disbanded last December, holding it responsible for the Ferozeshah Kotla fiasco. More than five months have gone by, but the Board doesn't look like it's going to have one in the foreseeable future.
"We are neither thinking of reinstating the old committee, nor are there any plans to have a new one at the moment," said a top BCCI official.
That's quite astonishing given that the 50-over World Cup, which India is co-hosting with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, is about eight-nine months away and the health of the wickets at most of our World Cup centres, last put to use during the Indian Premier League, isn't too great.
Players complained on and off about the sluggish nature of wickets during the IPL, but here's a statistic that shows that the wickets are slowing down with an increase in the cricket. The success rate of the teams batting second dropped to nearly 46 per cent this IPL from a high 57 percent in IPL I. The wickets do need mending and while the odd consultant from abroad is brought in and local associations have their own set-ups that work according to their local needs, there's no controlling body to oversee matters or implement necessary changes.
"The May to September period is vital for relaying or mending wickets. If we don't work on the wickets now, there's little that can be done later. And given that the World Cup will happen at the end of the season (Feb-March) on worn out wickets, it will take great effort to keep them in right shape," a top state curator told Hindustan Times.
On how much help the International Cricket Council's curators, who occasionally visit the centres ahead of the World Cup, will be, he said: "The ICC representatives generally review the work on the wickets and also pass on advice to the local curators.
But they are in and out. Having our own central committee would have been of far greater help. " Besides, the disbanding of the committee has apparently put an end to seminars and workshops for the curators.
"Most of us found these workshops and seminars really useful. Apart from learning modern methods for the upkeep of wickets, we also learnt how to handle the equipment provided to us," said Sunil Chauhan, a curator with the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association. Incidentally, the Dharamsala wicket turned out to be one of the best during the IPL.
Daljit Singh, chairman of the sacked committee, also felt the board should reconstitute the committee.
"I think the Grounds and Pitches Committee did a very good job over the years. It trained enough to people carry out the job even if the committee was not around. Personally, we should find some good hands and continue with it," he said. Ranjib Biswal, the tour manager for India's disastrous ICC World Twenty20, has reportedly recommended that India need to play on bouncy tracks to handle the rising ball - a major shortcoming in Barbados.
"We do feel that domestic games at least need to be played on fast wickets," said a national selector, "if the wickets for domestic games remain as dead as they are, where will youngsters learn".

Wanted for Indian cricket: Consistency of selection and a ban on tournaments played in islands

There are far too many reasons floating around for India's exit at the Super Eight stage of the T20 World Cup. No one even mentioned those (IPL, post-match parties, inability to play on bouncy tracks, poor squad selection, etc.) when India beat Afghanistan and South Africa.

By no stretch of imagination were the pitches at Barbados (where India lost to West Indies & Australia) bouncy pitches! They were good all-round wickets. India lost because its batsmen couldn't cope with anything above knee height, because its bowlers had zero ability to pick up wickets and because the fielding was a total joke.

It is a different matter though that the batsmen also struggle when the ball is 'slow and low'. So they can't play anything below ankle height and anything above knee height. Steve Waugh would call that a very huge comfort zone!

As in the 2009 edition, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, bizarrely chose to come in at #5 or #6 although he was in form and among the better batsmen around. Why he continued to persist with promoting an out-of-form and clearly unfit Yuvraj ahead of him was totally beyond comprehension.

The bigger issue though is the total lack of clarity and consistency around selection.

India's selectors keep picking squads for T20 that comprise of largely the same folks who play 50-over ODIs. Given the compressed nature of the T20 game, there is always a huge emphasis on cricketers with at least 2 skills - explosive batting, brilliant fielding and run-choking / wicket-taking bowling. Persisting with chaps like Nehra, Zaheer, Yuvraj (when he is unfit), Harbhajan and Praveen Kumar was really ridiculous.

India's successes in 1983, 1985 (ok, not exactly an ICC event!), 2002 and 2007, and the route to the finals in 2000 & 2003, had significant contributions from the fielding department.

The BCCI had over a year to identify specific players who needed help with playing "bouncy" stuff. When we say 'bouncy' stuff, do remember that it is not even getting close to "chin music"!

The BCCI had at least 4 years to figure out how the tracks in the Caribbean would have played. Was it not important enough? Did it assume that the tracks would be the same as those during the 2007 World Cup or the 4 ODIs in 2009?

Considering that India hadn't played a single game at Barbados over the last 4 years, was it really a surprise that the team was unprepared for the conditions?

Since Jan 2009, 29 players have been selected in India's ODI and T20 squads. That doesn't sound like a huge number, and it may seem like there actually is consistency of selection. But try explaining to the likes of Abhimanyu Mithun, Ashok Dinda, Amit Mishra, Badrinath, Abhishek Nayar, Pragyan Ojha, Ashwin, Virat Kohli, etc. that they have been treated fairly. Notice that with the exception of Kohli, Badri and Nayar, the rest are all bowlers.

This tells us that the 'senior' batsmen in the team are unlikely to get dislodged and any potential claimant to the spot must score a 250 in a 50-over innings or 150 in a 20-over innings to be considered.

Was there clarity around who plays what sort of role? Were Gambhir and Raina expected to bat through the innings? What was the expectation from Yuvraj and Rohit? What was Dhoni's role? If Vijay or Dinesh Karthik got picked, what were they supposed to do? Was Yusuf Pathan only supposed to try to hit every ball for 6 or 4?

Maybe its time for a thorough clean-up. Maybe the players who were picked for the T20 World Cup didn't have the hunger since they'd had it easy. Maybe its time to pick those who do have the hunger.

Forcing the games to be played during day-time hours in the West Indies just to cater to the Indian TV audience turned out to be so farcical after the team's pathetic showing.

The next time around, if the partners & sponsors tried to negotiate telecast timings, the ICC should ask them to take a look at India's recent record before assuming that India would even get to the semi-finals.

More importantly and more pertinently though, the BCCI must put its foot down and insist that ICC tournaments must no longer be held in islands, based on India's past record (Australia-New Zealand: 1992; England: 1975, 1979, 1983, 1998 & 2004; Sri Lanka: 2002 and West Indies: 2007). Of the 7 tournaments, India have been finalists on just 2 occasions and the rest were all major flop shows.