Terrorist attacks the real DLF Indian Premier League threat

Flanked by Bollywood glamour is one thing. To use such alluring fake charm as a diversion to events surrounding last week's auction of the Indian Premier League is a different matter.

It is no use either pointing fingers at the Indian Government, rather the ham-fisted way that Lalit Modi and his IPL cronies handled the matter of Pakistan's players for whatever way you want to look at it the terrorists have won the first round.

Although Preity Zinta didn't refer directly to the events, the Lahore attack of March 3 last year are still very much in the minds of many and indirectly why the franchise team bosses didn't want to have players in their ranks that could be targeted.

As India's all too often sanctimonious media and their pundits have rushed into print why players from neighbouring Pakistan failed to earn a single IPL bid, and Sri Lanka and even Australia didn't do much better, instead of giving valid reasons behind the rejection there are mostly specious comments.

In the continued fallout associated with Pakistan's battle with al-Qaeda and their horrific disruptive suicide bombing missions of soft targets in that country, their star players were always going to be losers in the IPL scramble to buy top performers. Surely it would have made more sense had Modi, or his IPL cronies, been streetwise enough to diplomatically suggest that now is not the right time for Pakistan's big named players to be involved in such a high profile international auction; explaining growing security concerns would have been more logical than to open the issue to the cheap toxic political-style brinkmanship debate it has become.

As it is, in a precautionary move because of Telegu political activism in Hyderabad, the IPL has shifted the opening ceremony and game of the third IPL edition to Mumbai. The March 12 game is between Kolkata Knight Riders, back under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly, and the Deccan Chargers, Adam Gilchrist's side with first up the battle of the fast men: 007 speedgun Bond with the lethal yorker for the Knights against the latest knuckle and rib-bruising Caribbean exocet missile specialist Kemar Roach.

Bond fetched an above the US$750,000 limit cap with Modi engineering the silent tie-breaker; Roach had a US$710,000 price tag. Or, as a source at the auction said, it became like the 'Pushkar camel fair' - people auctioning their camels; Royals shelled out US$100,000 for retired star Damien Martyn, Chennai Super Kings, with Andrew Flintoff not available went for a former ICL and South African limited overs specialist Justin Kemp.

What has been largely forgotten in this verbal scramble by many so-called big names in a self-righteous India media melee, and amid typical outraged Pakistan rhetoric, is that fundamentalist Islamic groups have declared a fight against such secular activities as cricket as part of their efforts to destabilise Pakistan. Until that battle is won by the secularists, the misguided politicians and their opportunist pretenders are going to pursue with idiot conceited malevolence, the issue of how the IPL franchise teams ignored someone such as Shahid Afridi and his teammates.

Sadly, the terrorist issue is a serous harbinger and will remain so, as will be the need for tighter security for the IPL franchises and their players until the terrorist threat is eliminated. Had any of the Pakistanis been involved, the possibility of a foreign insurgent group trying to destabilise the league is real enough. Along with other political bootlegging misfits and their goons, such as Shiv Sena and their vituperative agenda of hate, fundamentalist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba would be all too eager to create added fear by targeting Pakistan and other foreign players.

While this doesn't quite explain how several top Sri Lankan and Australian players were also spurned, with Wayne Parnell and Bond, Kemp and even little known South African Yusuf Abdulla considered far better purchases than Nuwan Kulasekara and Chanaka Welegedara, the Pakistan story is going to simmer among the unkempt five-day growths adorning the faces of those involved and that have almost become part of a touring player's culture these days.

From India, however, there are pertinent comments from sources linked to three of the franchises how most Sri Lanka players on auction largely disqualified themselves. It had been found, they said, that of the players monitored from the time of the Champions Trophy in South Africa and Champions League in India, as well as the Sri Lanka tour of India and Bangladesh, most failed carefully monitored fitness and fielding level requirements.

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