BCCI, players at loggerheads

The Cricket Board is bent upon not yielding even an inch on the new payment formula; the players won't budge on the riders for remuneration. Yet, both insist that there is no confrontation and it will be settled amicably. What is the way out, the time-tested solution, forming a two-member committee to sort the matters out!

Either the Board is unable to explain how the players can still make enough money from the new contracts or the players are unwilling to deviate from the path charted out by the Jagmohan Dalmiya regime when it brought in the contract system.

The bone of contention is that the Board is saying perform and get paid as much as you want whereas the players want that their donkeys' years in the game must get some weightage irrespective of their present form.

Much can be said for both, but in this era of perform or perish, the Board apparently wants the team as a whole to do well and win, not the individuals.

In this era of liberalization and corporate culture, companies have variable pay every month and there is no choice for the players except to work hard and qualify for incentive bonus.

Five years ago the cricket board and the players took up similar positions with guns trained at each other over contracts. Ironically, most of the personae dramatis of that time are still around except Dalmiya.

Dalmiya, who had a knack of timing every move of his with a purpose, was in a tearing hurry to get credit for implementing the contracts which he and his trusted lieutenants had prevented his predecessor A C Muthaiah from doing so, raising all sorts of queries after Prof Ratnakar Shetty and Anil Kumble had meticulously worked out a draft after prolonged discussions.

The only difference in five years is that some of the junior players then are among the so-called seniors today and some principal actors of that time have become voiceless because of their indifferent form.

What the Board and players do not seem to realize is that the process of finalizing contracts is never ending unless a broad formula is put in place on percentages of revenue receipts rather than notional figures and hypothetical assumptions.