Are the BCCI's burgeoning revenues harming world cricket?
In the last two decades, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has revolutionised the way the game is played and viewed across the world. Having successfully capitalised on the hitherto untapped commercial potential of cricket, sold television rights for billions of dollars, and attracted multi-national corporate sponsors, it is little surprise that the BCCI today is the richest cricket board in the world. From this position, it has ensured that the effective power centre of world cricket has shifted from the hallowed meeting rooms of the Lords' Cricket Ground to the corridors of India's financial capital, Mumbai. This growing stature has rested uneasily, not only with fellow cricketing nations, but also former Indian players fearful of cricket itself taking a backseat, and young cricketers unsure of whether they too will receive a share of this ever-increasing pie.
It is in this context that this session proposes to discuss the consequences of BCCI's burgeoning revenues. Four lines of enquiry are evident. First, has India, owing to its financial might, become the Big Brother of international cricket? Has it been successful in taking other countries along in cricket's spectacular commercial rise or is it alienating countries which have little to offer in return? Secondly, has Indian domestic cricket benefited from the wealth of the BCCI? Have infrastructure, player facilities, compensation for domestic players, officials and umpires improved? Thirdly, has the IPL, the jewel in the BCCI's crown, changed the way cricket is to be played and seen henceforth? How long can relatively less remunerative forms of the game hold their own against money-spinners such as the IPL and 20-20 cricket generally? Is cricket headed the football way with clubs at the centre of the competitions, replaced by countries when the World Cup comes along? Finally, does the internal legal structure of the BCCI need to change? Given its immense resources and the significance of cricket in Indian public life, is there a case for greater transparency and accountability in the institution, with a degree of public control? Over this session, we hope to have a critical discussion of some of these questions, questioning the merits and demerits of the BCCI being at the helm of Indian and perhaps world cricket today.
Chair: Arghya Sengupta, President Oxford Indian Society and Lecturer in Law, Oxford University.
Speakers:
Rob Steen,is an award-winning sportswriter and senior lecturer in sports journalism at the University of Brighton. His books include "Sports Journalism: A Multimedia Primer" and biographies of Desmond Haynes, Sonny Liston and David Gower, and he writes widely for a number of news and media publications including The Independent and Cricinfo. He won the 2005 UK section of the EU Journalism Award "for diversity, against discrimination" for his investigation into Anglo-Caribbean cricketers and is currently writing a history of spectator sport.
Andrew Miller,is former UK Editor of Cricinfo and is currently the Editor of 'The Cricketer' Magazine.
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Well most people know when watching IPL of home series in India that commentators seemingly pretend that DRS dont exist on earth when certain decisions occur. 
