Crisis after crisis

From a self-proclaimed, recession-proof enterprise to a hairy logistical snafu and a scramble before sarkar, cricket’s multimillion dollar T20 league has covered an awful lot of ground awfully fast. Within a month, the swaying palms of Goa have been replaced by North Block corridors and the rollout of Bollywood beauties and business moguls with the company of grim mandarins.

With less than three weeks to opening night, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has lurched from crisis to crisis, with every possible scenario—migration, compression, cancellation— being contemplated. The insouciant announcement of its dates before the Government had released the election schedule and boasts about ‘hiring private security’ have dissolved in the aftermath of the ambush of Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore and a severe working over by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Far from the IPL rhetoric of the six-week league being a reflection of national capability or even honour, BCCI President Shashank Manohar toldIndia Today, “That (the IPL) is not the most important thing in the country... Elections are more important than any cricketing event.” It would seem a self-evident truth but it has taken a two-week tangle with the Government in Delhi to work that out. IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi denied that the League’S image had been hurt or that there had ever been a tangle. “There is no question of it... We have been working with them, elections are important, so we had to work within the time frame and with all the logistics.”

Removed from such surface smoothness, sources in the Home Ministry say that Home Minister P. Chidambaram refused to meet Modi despite repeated requests.