Million Dollar Monkey

Oh the joys of self publishing. The joys of the internet. Send the PC police to arrest dongles. I don’t care – he doesn’t exist. Besides, the term “Million Dollar Monkey” was not my idea. It was Sven Gorsky – he made me do it.

The first IPL auction was very, very interesting. The $US 1.6 million forked out for M S Dhoni may have raised a few eyebrows. That is 32% of the team salary cap for about 8% of the squad. But remember that M S Dhoni is the new face of India. He may not be an official icon but he is none the less, iconic.

The second most highly paid player is Andrew Symonds. In the aftermath of Monkey Gate and the Sydney Test, it was suggested that the Australians were jeopardising their status in IPL. Like most of the things said following Monkey Gate, that has been proven to be bollocks. One of the central characters, the monkey himself, is laughing all the way to the bank.

Here are some interesting points:

The five iconic players – reserved the to play for their home franchises (Tendulkar, Dravid etc) are all million dollar men but I wonder if they are happy. Their pay was determined by adding 15% to the next highest paid player’s bid. For example, Tendulkar will captain the Mumbai team. Jayasuriya was the highest paid player won by Mumbai at the auction. He commanded a cool one mill. So Tendulkar’s contract is 1.15 mill. Nothing to snivel about but a long way short of Symonds and Dhoni. The teams committed to icon players were burdened with the guarantee of paying a motza for at least two players, whereas non-icon franchises had full flexibility.

The Indian players have done the best and that’s no surprise. The “I” in IPL is for India. IPL is about India, Indians, Indian crickets fans and most of all, Indian cricket players. He may be in good form, but after at just 19 years of age and after one international season, Ishant Sharma is the highest paid bowler ($950k). Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan and Suresh Raina may be household names in India but are not so well known around the world and they have come out with upwards of $600k – $700k. IPL is about India and the rest are along for the ride. And they should be counting their blessings.

David Hussey waxed his brother’s tail by almost 100% – $675k to Michael’s $350k. Many of the Australians seemed to earn less than expected. That is, Australians that are expected to tour Pakistan (if the tour proceeds). A distraught Ponting ($400k), Hussey and Hayden ($375k) all seem under paid, especially when you look at the Indian players. Keep in mind that if a player can only play half his matches, his pay is pro rated. If you do half the work, you get half the booty. Guys like Cameron White ($500k), David Hussey and of course, Gillie ($750k) are smiling. Take into consideration that players like Warne and McGrath only got as much as they did because of their “base price”. All players had a base price and that was determined by a rating from A to F. It’s a bit like those Fantasy Cricket competitions you can enter and you need to mix up your gradings. In fact, I think those cheeky buggers at IPL used the player gradings from the last World Cup Fantasy Cricket comp. The only “big time” Australian to get the truly big bucks is Brett Lee ($900k). And he’s a Bollywood star, for crying out loud.

Which brings me back to Andrew Symonds. Roy and Cricket Australia are on course for a showdown. I would not be surprised if Symonds does not play for Australia again after this season. If the tour of Pakistan is cancelled then we don’t have a problem. If it does go ahead, Symonds has already said that he won’t go. That’s fair enough – players are entitled not to tour. However, I wonder if Roy may think he might just go and have some hit and giggle over in India seeing he’s got nothing else to do. If I worked for CA (and I never would) I would not be standing for that. Roy is contracted to them and that means if he doesn’t want to play, he isn’t allowed to play somewhere else. Roy is a good bloke and honest to a fault but he’s also a capitalist – he appears in 16.2 ads per hour during cricket telecasts, and I presume, not for free. Matters of money must be separated from matters of conscience – it’s just common sense. Roy’s “fightin’ words” will have spurred CA into striving to make the Pakistan tour go ahead. I believe that exploration of a shorter tour is a direct result of an intention to battle IPL.

Mitchell Johnson, Brad Haddin and the next captain of Australia, Michael Clarke elected to pull out of IPL to “concentrate on their international careers” (although it has just emerged that Pup wants to spend more time with his sick father). What does that mean? The implication must be that participating in IPL will be detrimental to the development of budding international careers. I don’t see how the actual playing in IPL – against the best international crickets in the world – would do that. However, losing favour with administrators and selectors would have a rather significant impact on your career. What exactly did James Sutherland say to the lads? Why are the senior players apparently unworried?

Andrew Symonds is going to have some choices. a) Tour with Pakistan with everyone else. b) Miss the tour, sit out IPL while the Pakistan tour is on and lose about $AUD 700. c) Miss the tour, play for IPL and never play for Australia again. I think it will come down to that.

IPL – Bigger than Ben Hur

Make no mistake, IPL is no ordinary TLA (Three Letter Acronym). It comes with all the money, power and majesty that any corporate bullshit bingo player could ever dream off. As I hinted recently, IPL is coming, it is here to stay and a storm may be brewing. Perhaps it won’t be of WSC proportions but a few feathers may be about to be ruffled. I think that Cricket Australia should get ready to make way – for crying out loud, CA is only a puny two letter acronym. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI – they sure knew what they were doing when they went with a whole FOUR letters) is starting to flex its significant muscle and if this summer in Australia is any indication, I reckon CA will roll over.

Here is the situation: IPL runs over March and April. There is to be a big auction on 20 Feb where all of the contracted players will be bought by the various IPL franchises. How exciting. That is with the exception of so called iconic Indian players. These players are not for sale (but don’t worry, they will be handsomely paid) – Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Dravid must play for their home cities (full details of the action http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/story/335706.html). Players have until the day of the auction to sign their contracts.

This is where the problems lies for Australian players and CA. Many of us will have noticed that months ago most of the Australian team provisionally signed with IPL. Not many paid attention and CA said nothing. What was IPL and it was ages away and who cares about T20 cricket anyway? Now, with the first IPL season rapidly approaching and conflicting with the tour of Pakistan, there is a conflict. CA is trotting out the line that they have concerns that there could be conflict of interest between IPL and CA sponsors – now that one really does belong in the corporate bullshit boardroom. It is about control and money for CA. A tour is money for CA and control is, well, control. It’s what cricket boards have always strived for.

CA has right of veto over players signing contracts that are in conflict with CA contracts. BCCI has said that they will respect that, and official tours that clash with IPL. CA has also said that they support IPL and want it to succeed. Of course, they do – if their boys can be paid about the same amount as the annual CA contract for six week work, all’s the better. It takes some of the pressure off CA to show the money. However, BCCI, through Lalit Modi are turning up the heat. They are pushing the 20 February deadline and have indicated Australian players can take part in the tournament without “no objection certificates” from Cricket Australia. Them’s fighting words. (http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/current/story/336347.html)

Of course, there is an easy “out” here. The Pakistan tour has been in danger of being cancelled for some time, due to valid security concerns. It will be very easy to get a letter from ABC Security Consultants saying that it is not safe to tour. That is sad for Pakistan and it is a real worry that players might be tempted to use excuses for not touring, in order to make more money. However, it’s all well and good to be principled and pure (whatever that means in this context) but let’s face the facts – IPL will not be beaten and nobody wins a war. The ACB (CA when they were still a TLA) didn’t achieve anything in the WSC cricket war except to play a part in making wounds that took a decade to heal.

I say let Ricky and the boys join Simon Taufel and all the greats and ex-greats in India for a six week slogathon. The annual event will be good for the coffers, good for moral, good for the players bank balances (why are moral and bank balances so inextricably linked?) and we won’t have to worry about not playing enough T20.