'Moses' Modi Looking all at Sea

By Gulu Ezekiel

At the end of IPL’s first season, PR master Ravi Shastri had called his mentor Lalit Modi “the Moses of cricket.”
But while the Biblical Moses was said to have parted the Red Sea to save his people, Modi has not been able to control the natural elements to save his baby.
Despite all his organizational ingenuity, the IPL czar did not factor in the weather when he took his 11th-hour decision to shift his circus from India to South Africa.
Ironically one of the reasons for not choosing England as the alternative venue was the wet weather that bedevils cricket at this time.
It was thanks to the rain that for the first time one saw the sorry spectacle of a match involving international cricketers truncated to six overs. Which is even fewer than the schoolboy ‘gulli’ cricket of our youths!
If that bit of farce when Delhi batted on Sunday was not bad enough, to have a ‘tactical time-out’ at the midway point (in this case, at the end of six overs) of the Punjab innings, brought a new low to the IPL, one which has reduced it to an international laughing stock.
The weather is not the only force of nature which is working against ‘Moses’ Modi this time around. With the cricket season in South Africa having ended officially with the fifth and final ODI against Australia last Friday, the wear-and-tear on the pitches has made it hell for the batsmen.
Last year there were 11 totals of 200-plus in 59 games (or 20%) on India’s flat batting tracks. But in a format of the game which is supposedly batsman oriented—the crowds flock in to watch the boundaries flow—anything over 150 will be considered a winning total this year.
Last year there were just three totals below 100 in full games. This time there have already been two in five matches.
Meanwhile, Modi and his minions can only wring their hands in helplessness!

www.sportshero.com (21/4/09)