But Homer because of your strong support for BCCI let me ask you this

1. Why aren’t people like Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Munaf Patel and other promising youngsters being encouraged to play county cricket? Zaheer Khan got a second lease of life playing for Worcestershire. Don’t you think Raina and Kohli will get over their phobia for short balls playing for three months in English conditions and wickets? Why can’t BCCI just force them to go at the cost of not playing IPL? Or is their cricket not as important as the moolah for BCCI?

2. Why were Sehwag and Zaheer not stopped from playing IPL? It was common knowledge that both of them were carrying injuries and have a ‘FRAGILE’ label stamped over them. Why were they forced to play a 14 matches in 30 days, with an interval of sometimes 1 day, traveling millions of kilometers that too just after the world cup? Can’t BCCI just ask them to sit out and compensate them for the loss of pay? Or is it just that for the BCCI the Indian team is secondary and interests of IPL team owners come first?

3. Also in a meeting between the franchisee owners and the BCCI, which side of the table will the current BCCI President sit? What is the guarantee that he will keep the interests of the country in mind over that of the franchises given that he owns one? And in which country does the chairman of selectors work for a franchise?

And since that man has taken over, Don’t you see an increase in the number of players from that particular franchise?

Most of the members of BCCI are randomly selected, the functioning is ad-hoc at best. I will go ahead and label Indian Sporting bodies as the worst in the world and BCCI only the best among the worst. If the Australian, English and the South African boards had so much money and market, Cricket would only be next to football in the pantheon of world sports.

And finally tell me One innovation, one contribution to world cricket by the BCCI? One is all I ask.

(1) England had 2 3-day warm-up games and one ODI vs Presidents XI. Can you recount the last time India had 2 warm-up games ? I think it was the 2003-04 Aussie tour and no surprise that India started well in that tour. Yes, having ODIs before Tests will help but still given the differences between the two teams now, don’t you think Test warm-ups are necessary ?

(2) At least the two reports showed that the respective boards at least agreed that there was a problem. Wasn’t Sutherland lambasted for saying no-problem with selection after the Ashes ? Compare this with what N.S. has said about England tour. That is why i called it the “worst”.

(3). On standards & ethics, are you claiming that Cricinfo doesn’t adhere to same standards as TOI, HT, IE, The Hindu et al ? I would like to know in what way you think the mainstream media has better standards than Cricinfo ?

Anyways, I do not remember hearing from IPL Commissioner that, lack of ethics is the reason for not allowing Cricinfo. The reason given was that IPL had its own website and probably wanted a monopoly over the web coverage of IPL. But other international cricket ? That sounds petty and small-minded.

Media has been negative about BCCI, sometimes unreasonably as well. For ex., the DRS issue. But a lot of times, it is BCCI that has brought it upon itself by some poor scheduling, itinerary and spectator unfriendliness. Don’t get me started on toilets and last-minute schedule announcements. It is not for lack of money but for lack of will.

Yes, Cricinfo sometimes tends to be quite dreary with daily match analysis et al. by two sides but i still think they are a better site for cricket news/columns than any other website. My personal favourites are Gleanings, Ask Steven, Martin Williamson’s and some interviews. I do not know any other website that has such features. I would be quite happy to hear from you if there are any other comprehensive cricket websites.