No cricket? How will I fill the paper?

Verbatim from AP advisory wire:

 

See here my good man, that is simply not cricket. Dare I say.

 

(crickets)

 

Apparently someone from a state's athletic association has moved up in the world.

 

Wondering if this is like the situation with the LPGA a few years back?

 

It's something of a growing problem, not just in cricket. Certain sporting organizations feel the media needs them more than they need the media and said organizations demand veto power over when, where and how many of the photos of their competition are distributed. Par for the course for the BCCI, which behaves -- perhaps not incorrectly -- as though the cricket world revolves around India.

 

This has been going on for a while now with international cricket matches in India. It sounds funny, but the IPL is the richest event in a pretty big global sport. It's basically like the R&A saying that they will be the only provider of photographs from the British Open, or FIFA doing it for the World Cup.

When England was playing in India, some websites used sketch-artist drawings of key moments, while others used LEGO or screenshots from old videogames.

 

The IPL is also about as far from the traditional image of cricket as it is possible to get. Loud music, dancing girls, sponsors all over the place.

And yes. The BCCI makes the NCAA look like an anarchosyndicalist commune.

 

Howzat?