Soon after Shane Bond signed up with the Indian Cricket League, he found himself in limbo. A club, but no country to play for. He met up with Rahul Bhatia for a chat over non-existent coffee: "I'm too coffeed out."
There were rumors in April last year that the Indian Cricket League had contacted you. When did they open lines of communication?
I can't remember the exact time, but I got a contract through September from the ICL, and once I got the contract in writing, I took it to New Zealand Cricket straightaway. So they knew from day one that the ICL were interested. We did the processes: asking for a release and getting it.
They had no problem giving you a release?
No, as long as it complied with the standard stuff -- injury and being available for New Zealand, commitments, etc. I had to promise to play the England tour, which was no problem because I wanted to keep playing for New Zealand. It was pretty much a standard release form.
Has there been any news about your county contract?
No, not yet. I suppose at this stage I'm probably not going to be able to go because I can't [inaudible] NOC (No-objection certificate), because I've got no ties to the board. New Zealand Cricket have written a letter for me saying they've got no objection to be playing because they've got nothing to do with me anymore. They say they're happy for me to play. I suppose, legally, I'm entitled to, but I wouldn't expect to.
You mentioned somewhere that you didn't want to go to court because of the ramifications it would have for New Zealand cricket. What ramifications are those?
My understanding is that the Indian cricket board has written a letter to New Zealand Cricket threatening the withdrawal of all IPL contracts, A-tours, maybe the senior tour as well. Obviously, it's something that I didn't want to cost New Zealand cricket. I didn't want to see that happen.
This dissuaded others?
Maybe. I think that's what they're trying to do right now. I mean, my manager's been blacklisted, or something's been put out about her. People are not to have dealings with her. I think the whole thing is disgusting. And it's unethical. When you have a job, you're entitled to work and move around, and the ICL has said that international cricket will come first for the players, so I don't see what the problem is. It's like a power trip the boards are on. The more they carry on like this, the more people will sit up and say that this is appropriate. I've got no doubt that if it continues like this I'll go to court to fight it, because it's getting to the point where I've had enough.
I've had numerous requests from players to put their name forward for the ICL. I think there's no shortage of players who want to become part of the competition.
You're heard about the ECB's Twenty20 venture?
Yes. I think people are people are seeing the value and interest generated by Twenty20. I don't know if the Indian cricket board would like competition from another board. I get the feeling from stuff you read on Cricinfo, that there's some angst starting to happen in some West Indian boards and even Australia because they realize the IPL could have a serious effect on their teams. If I was a New Zealand player, like an Oram or a McCullum, and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, why would I sign a contract with New Zealand Cricket? Why wouldn't I just go play for IPL? And the same goes for Andrew Symonds. Why would he sign an Australia contract? All of a sudden boards are going to say, 'hey, we're missing something here'.
I suppose England's the exception because the pound is so strong. I think there's only 12 ECB contracts, and with only 12 they can afford to pay their players really good money. It's the second-tier players, the county players, who may look at it. And, of course, countries like South Africa and New Zealand, where our currency is weaker than the US dollar.
Around September, when you got the contract in writing, the BCCI had announced its IPL as well. So you had a choice. Why'd you choose the ICL?
Look, I had a full contract from the ICL, and a memorandum from the IPL. So I took both to my lawyer and said, 'Tell me what you think of these contracts'. The ICL contract was very thorough and covered everything, and the lawyer was happy with that. The memorandum from IPL was one-two pages, and very vague. So he said, "Look, I can't advise you to sign this contract but you can sign this one'. At the time, given the choices, I took this one, and told NZC about it.
People always I'm tired of hearing that the ICL is the rebel league, the one that's hurting cricket. I disagree. I think the IPL's the one that's going to have the major effect on cricket. They should just make a window and allow players to play in both leagues. Why not? You've got competition. I think one league needs the other. They're both betting press because of each other. If you look anywhere around the world, people prefer one league to another if they have something to compare with. I think the same thing happened in American football and baseball. They had two leagues that came together and they had the World Series and Super Bowl.
Did you expect that your board's response would be this fierce?
I get asked that a lot, whether I saw it coming. Well, that's why you go down the route of getting permission. Given that, no, I didn't see this coming.
Rahul Bhatia, a former Cricinfo and Mint correspondent, will file regular reports/features/interviews for Rediff during the ICL tournament. More of him here. (http://grch.wordpress.com/)
