Is India going the Pakistan way?

Most Indians will answer the above question in negative. In fact if the parameters of the question were politics, or economy or security, even I would have said the same thing. But if it is in relation to organizing successful cricket tournaments, sadly I have to answer in affirmative. While most of us know and agree that the security situation of our country looks better than that of our neighbors', I may have no qualms in saying that the end result may eventually be the same.

If kotla had given us a cricketing reason for moving matches out of the venue, Hyderabad gave us another reason. Telengana. Thanks to the agitators who literally took to field in one of the local T20 matches, the IPL opener was shifted to Mumbai. Loss of revenue for the HCA and loss of credibility for the city. More so loss of a great event for the fans of a cricket loving city.

Does it end there? No. As I write this there have been signals from shiv sena that they might just oppose the attacks on Indians in Australia by protesting (?) during the IPL. Fears that the opener may again be shifted to elsewhere are justified.

The reasons may not be as strong as they are in Pakistan. But by the passing day, India is building a name for itself in the cricketing circles for being vulnerable to cancellations and postponements due to non cricketing reasons.

While PCB did not have the commercial might to bury speculations and apprehensions, BCCI has managed to do it for quite a while now. Ask Shane Warne and the English team. But life they say is a circle and one day (I hope it is not too soon) BCCI will lose that control and that's when we will suffer. We the fans. I hope someone is thinking about this. What do you think?