Buck stops here: Money talks, money plays cricket

THE GAME CHANGES: Is big money the best thing that happened to Indian cricket?

                        

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• BCCI to lose charitable status, will pay tax

• Indian Premier League won't harm cricket: Gilchrist

• Chargers drub Challengers | Match pix | confident Kallis

Top Headlines

Top Videos

Most Popular

• Gujarat dry status an ideological hangover? 

• India dry, Pawar says well-stocked for 13 months | Drought diary 

• Manmohan, Gilani fix up meeting without a date 

• India puts it in writing: Pak planned 26/11 

• Burger King apologises to Hindus for offensive ad 

• SC takes up plea against gay sex, issues notice 

• Suspected Dawood aide acquitted in fake currency case 

• Another 'lover' arrested at Sania Mirza's house 

• Mumbai, Pune and Delhi face 30-40 pc water shortage 

• Politicos get into the ABC of Varun's Z-plus security 

• MP drought-hit 

• Sariska tigers siblings, incest dangerous: Experts 

• 2016 Games contenders go all out to woo voters 

• Watch: Zardari admits to nurturing terrorists 

• SC takes up plea against gay sex, issues notice 

• CJ: Delhi-based builders make off with money 

• Pune reels under 40 per cent water cuts 

• RTI against college lands DCE student in trouble 

• Sports officer attacked for fighting corruption 

• Watch: Ferreira talks about sports and Union Budget 

• Forbes India: 20 stocks you must own 

• Dry state Gujarat reels under hooch tragedy 

• Burger King apologises to Hindus for offensive ad 

• India puts it in writing: Pak planned 26/11 

• Army honours Mohanlal with Lieutenant Colonel post 

• Another 'lover' arrested at Sania Mirza's house 

• MP drought-hit 

• Sariska tigers siblings, incest dangerous: Experts 

• Mamata dismisses corporate structure for railways 

• Mysore: PFI activists clash with police, lathicharged 

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

On a day when more than Rs 160 crore was spent to buy 86 cricketers, Cricket's Big Baazar changed the gentleman’s game and the gentlemen forever.

Players across the cricketing globe were bought out by top business tycoons and film stars as bids for Indian Premier League (IPL) .

Indian ODI skipper MS Dhoni was bought by Chennai Superkings for Rs 6 crore, while Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds, on the other hand, out-priced his skipper Ricky Ponting at Rs 5.4 crore.

Sanath Jayasuriya may be at the end of his cricketing career, but that did not stop Mumbai from shelling out Rs 3.9 crore.

But the one that surprised everyone was Ishant Sharma – who at the age of 19 – commands a sum of Rs 3.8 crore, was bought over by the Shah Rukh Khan owned Kolkata. Irfan Pathan justified his appeal with Rs 3.7 crore for the Mohali team.

The cricketers are laughing all the way to the bank, but do the big bucks compare to what international superstars pocket? What's the future of this latest cricket avatar? Is big money the best thing that happened to Indian cricket? This was the question on Wednesday's Face the Nation with CNN-IBN's Bhupendra Chaubey and Gaurav Kalra.

Former India captain and IPL's Chennai team's brand ambassador Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Ayaz Memon, Associate Editor, DNA, actor and TV anchor Mandira Bedi, and Lokesh Sharma, Managing Director of 21st Century Media debated the issue.

Bidders at the IPL's auctioning claimed that the bidding was the beginning of a new future – a future where top cricketers from different parts of the world will play in India for Indian cities.

With unprecedented money being pumped in by none other than cricketing powerhouse India, has Indian cricket and world cricket changed forever?

Lokesh Sharma seems to agree. "It's going to be a watershed in the history of global cricket, because this is the first time that a free enterprise, private enterprises come into play. For the first time, club cricket is taking an international flavour. So I think this is going to be a major point."

TV personality and cricket expert Mandira Bedi, however, swears that IPL will be known for its cricket, "which is as much of a sport as it is entertainment. It will give it that extra punch. It will be known for taking that entertainment quotient a notch higher."

There was a lot of talk that the IPL would be all a big tamasha and will be a lot of marketing and a lot of hype and nothing else, but in the way the teams have been picked, it has thrown open the debate of sound cricketing logic being behind the formation of the teams.

Ayaz Memon says: "There has certainly been some hard-fought strategy going in. Everybody had $5 million to spend, so you couldn't take 11 of the marquee names. I think there is a skew in favour of the all-rounders, especially guys who can score virtually off every ball. The first three biggest stars are all of that. Jayasuriya is an interesting case: at 38, he is the kind of guy who can clear the ropes at will, bowl four good overs. I think it is very clearly thought out and the advisors have had a lot to do with it."

But doesn't it defy logic that a new kid on the block gets more than Rs 3 crore while Ricky Ponting, who is the best batsman in the world, gets Rs 1.6 crore?

"I think the IPL is all about Indians. The Indians will definitely have more preference, they will command more money than the foreigners," Srikkanth explains.