For the last three seasons, IPL has been toast of the town, so far as the elite and the nouveau riche is concerned.  From day one, it became increasingly clear that IPL was not a mere cricketing tournament – it was something much beyond.  For cricket purists, even the shorter fifty over format of the game were a shocker.  Kerry Packer’s innovation which has now come to be established  as a regular  feature of international cricket and is recognized by the International Cricket Council – was, in fact,  scorned off as `pajama cricket’.  That was history.  The format of cricket was evolving and responding to commercial compulsions of the television era.

Sports generally, and cricket particularly, has emerged as a powerful impetus for huge commercial investment.  The love for cricket in India soared with the surprise triumph of India in the Cricket World Cup in the early eighties.  Since then, cricket has come to be regarded as almost a religion in a country of billion plus.  With it, money has flown leading to an unprecedented level of commercialization changing the very nature of the game and also the earnings of all those involved in the sport beyond the most outrageous level of imagination.

And, IPL promoted by the Board of Cricket Control of India was the most outstanding signpost of this phenomenon.  Cricket was no longer a sport but a wholesome package with fun, frolic, music and cheer leaders, et al.  This was visible. But a more thoroughgoing transformation was taking place within.  IPL came to be regarded as a major source of generating money – a significant instrument of financial investment.  Globally, India became the undisputed financial power house in funding of cricket.  This was so much so that today cricketers involved in IPL are the second highest paid sports people after the NBA basket ballers of US.

Corporatisation of the sport was a notch higher in the evolution of commercialization of the sport.  An unprecedented level of money was offered to win bids for owning teams and being part of the IPL tournament.  Financial investment was flowing thick and fast.  Not only cricket purists but those who follow global economic trends had been struck with a sense of discomfort with the manner of these developments.  But, the levels of mainstream media support and coverage of IPL was so overwhelming that any doubt Sayers would have been instantly condemned as pariah.

Globalisation has changed the very way that capital functions.  From its central function as investment, it has now come to play essentially the role of finance to ensure deployment for short term humongous speculative gains. IPL, television rights, sponsorships, teams, players –  all became commoditized – becoming major vehicle for financial investment.  This was globalization of sport embodied, drawing and sustaining from a nation for which cricket was a religion.

The cricket establishment which was inseparably enmeshed with the high and the mighty from the field of politics, industry, business, media and entertainment forged into a powerful oligarchy with an irresistible force.  Unfortunately,  the government, financial regulators and agencies which ought to have sat up with alacrity at the display of such vulgar and atrocious dimension  of  opulence and money making – clearly breaching all legal limits of wealth  accumulation – remained unmoved.

But every `good story’ with an unreal basis seeking to sell a `dream’ of good life has to more often suffer a rude jolt.  The global financial meltdown is a case in point. And, so has been the current case with IPL.  Shashi Tharoor incidentally has been the first casualty.  His protestations notwithstanding, it is clear that his heart was not bleeding for Kochi or Kerala, but the cool amount that was earned as `sweat equity’.  But, it is only a beginning.  The exit of Tharoor has triggered off a process of unraveling of the soft underbelly of the sleaze and muck that has accompanied the globalization of the business model of IPL.

In the wake of a very critical public response sufficiently translated through the pressure of the opposition in Parliament – UPA-2 had to lose its first ‘political paratrooper’ – an international diplomat.  He must be surely upset with the reaction of the representatives of the `cattle class’.  He must not despair; because the process has just about begun.

Now, the onus is squarely on the government. It has to answer a series of questions and come out with truth-based on solid, impartial, incisive and comprehensive multi-agency investigation.  Who formed the consortia who owned the city specific teams?  What was the equity structure of these powerful entities? Who funded their investments?  Where from did the funds come – Mauritius, Dubai, Cayman Islands or other tax havens?  Whether the managers and the top brass of the IPL like Lalit Modi or his more powerful mentors have their own stakes in the teams which would ensure quick gains and ill-gotten wealth?  Whether laws of the land were breached?  Whether regulatory agencies exercised their statutory powers of oversight to protect the interest of public exchequer?  Whether corporates and other entities that have been showered with tax waivers have repaid the country?  Whether a country where 50 per cent of the people  lives below the poverty line deserve a government which  showers  corrupt entities with  tax largesse?