Gentleman's Game or new Circus in Town !!

India is a nation which breathes sports and the mother of all sports here is Cricket. Well thats wrong on some levels. If cricket is introduced as a religion, people wont think twice to jump across and adopt it in the same way how Dhoni has adopted Ravindra Jadeja. Even the most minute of any cricketing activity takes place, people sit and take notice. Just no mere noticing facts, but we will take those couple of steps ahead and chew and ruminate these facts. Finally spit the by product, sometimes its a piece of news or moral while some other time its a whole individual. Now I feel how Aditya Pancholi feels. Bollywood is so cruel !!

So when India witnessed one of its precursors to another Cricket-esque circus i.e. IPL auction, the excitement of the commoners knew no bounds. For a country where the movie heroes take oaths of being above any kind of money and lust, these cricketers go under the hammer as easy as taking candy away from a baby. Are these cricketers mere puppets in this entire glamour show ? Lets ask Mr. Manmohan Singh ... ... ... ... Ok .. so moving on !! *Awkward*

So even if the world at large seems to struggle in terms of economic conditions, here at the IPL auction there were some deep pockets being emptied on the table and everyone was all in !! This being the sixth auction, the nine teams which were a part of this gala event spent a combined total of $11.89 million (Rs.64 crore approximately) on purchasing 37 players, as against 25 players at last year's event. So the usual suspects were there, the MIs and the CSKs but apart from that there was one major change. The Deccan's charge no more existed and was replaced by Sun TV channel sponsored Sun Risers - A new team from Hyderabad.

The story of the entire auction was Aussie Aussie Aussie !! Yay Yay Yay !! The major coup being Glenn Max (All is) Well. The Victorian all rounder fetched a massive $1 million from Mumbai Indians. The biggest price in the auction. Melbourne just witnessed the Maxwell family doing a series of cartwheels and standing sommersaults on the streets. Also there were big paydays for some of the little heard Aussie boys like Kane Richardson, Coulter-Nile and Ben Laughlin. Not to forget Mr. Punter - Ricky Ponting who will be seen sharing tele space with the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar himself when they open the innings for Mumbai Indians in the coming season. Some of the other prominent players to go under the hammer where Michael Clarke, Darren Sammy and Ajantha Mendis. Abhishek Nayar was the top grossing Indian with almost 7 times the base amount. The comic relief of the day went to Sun RISERS when they signed Quinton De KOCK .. quite a match this !!

Setting up this grand affair only cost millions of bucks plus the hospitality of the bidders. And taking a leaf out of this money spinning book, people are setting up their own versions for every sport. There is already a Hockey League in place based on this. iLeague (football)was already there, trust me it was. Now we have Badminton and Boxing planning competitions and leagues on similar business model. Even our Bollywood celebrities are not far behind. They have their own cricket variation - Celebrity Cricket League with the Veer Marathis & Bhojpuri Dabangs. Time will come when there will be Kite Flying Super League or Marbles Champions League. 

The names or the players that were auctioned were not surprising. After all they are talented individuals who have done well for club or country. However the money spent on them and the manner in which it is spent. Phenomenal amount of money is spent sometimes even on unproven talent. Even Ted Mosby's kids have a better probability of knowing their mother than some of these franchisees knowing how their players can deliver. Gone are the days when the Dames & the Sires were sitting in the pavilions at Lords and appreciating each master cricket shot with an applause set of three claps. Now its all cheer leaders, DJs and vuvuzelas. But life comes a full circle and yours truly is pretty sure that those days will come again. And yes Mr. W.G. Grace is waiting for you !!

2G: Raja flipped, now Sibal flopped !!

For a country with one of the largest consumer base and the mentality of buying galore, it was that awkward moment as huge money spinning, moolah strumming bands of airwaves went unsold. The government, which had set a reserve price of Rs 14,000 crore for pan-India spectrum was based on some serious number crunching by CAG. These calculations were done to cover the losses as part of the previous sale in 2008. However the government managed a meagre Rs 9,407.64 crore in the auction that lasted barely two days. Even well 'Cook'ed innings by English batsmen in Tests in India last longer.

But the government was under the weather similar to that IT guy just before the appraisals. The targets were locked and garnering Rs 30,000 crore through disinvestment and Rs 28,000 crore by way of sale of spectrum to telecom companies by the end of this fiscal was no easy task. The deficit was 'hot-air' ballooning and the disinvestment also not going the way it intended to which meant that 2G was their 'ParleG' for treasury nourishment.

This was a classic case of inability of striking the iron when it is hot. From Montek to the neighborhood paanwala, it was a unanimous decision that the auction was timed wrongly. But who says nothing can be done. Like for every flop bollywood star Big Boss acts as that moment of comeback to limelight, in the exact same way re-pricing the spectrum at regular intervals and auction of the remaining bandwidth should be a win-win. Scabbers .. oops Mr. Sibal likes this.

So it all started with Raja treating one of the biggest auctions the country has seen aka 2G spectrum one as inventory system of the local grocer. However the First Come First Served scheme was tinkered with and even the Prime minister and other 'not so Prime ones' were as bamboozled as Aussies facing Indian spinners on fifth day Wankhede wicket. The system threw 'Error 404' everytime the word transparency came up and rest as we know is history.

But let us look from another perspective. Would the common people come to know about the problems in the process if not for the hue and cry by CAG and more importantly the Rs 1.76 lakh crore amount doing the rounds. Its India and people pay attention to numbers. Replace the ministers' names with mere barcodes or heavy numbers and people will take notice. What is gone is gone, make ammends and carry on !!

But again we all flock to one common consensus and earmark one reason and carry on. This time the scapegoat is 'The price of the spectrum is too high'. It sounds like a mere statement and its totally unjustified. Firstly, the spectrum is being sold for a block of 20 years. Who knows where the prices vs usage graph will take us in some years. So what happens when India grows at larger rate, the dynamics have to be understood now and the price needs to be factored. Its like how much you convince the movie buffs that its the start of parallel cinema but that one SRK romantic movie brings you back on the level one supposition.

Second, its mere stupidity to price spectrum low just because business is low. Its like asking for discounts for woolen wear in the month of May. Here it may sound appropriate, but sweaters are no telecom spectrums. And if things worked the same everywhere I would be at the non strike seeing Sachin Tendulkar in action *snap*.  So back to reality then.

Third but not the last, the initial price of the spectrum was kept on the lower side to lure foreign money to the country's economy. Now how much of that money went into the economy is a big question. So now Manmohan Singh and his troops have to work on reverse psychology and get their work done.

So then to put it in a nutshell, one knows that the auction will always be in a pickle when there is bad investment scenario looming large, no involvement of the bigwigs, cartelisation, absence of policy changes and ofcourse the high price of spectrum and not proper utlization. It was basically a recipe for disaster and its fitting that Sibal and his entourage owns up.

So Mr. Sibal, snap out from that Bubble !! Wow that rhymed !!