Oh no, not again?

[houdini]

India is almost set to tour Sri Lanka this year in July-August. Why? Yes, WHY? Most fans are asking the same question to whoever they might ask a question to.

The Sri Lankan Cricket Board, now called Sri Lanka Cricket, has its sights set on another tour from India, supposedly to fill the gap in the ftp this year:

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is looking to host India for three Tests and an ODI tri-series, with New Zealand the third team, later this year to help fill the void that exists in their international calender for 2010.

I have a familiar feeling about this. Of course, even you do. In the past 5 years, we have played SL more than 50 times if you add all the formats. That is a lot of games. And that is enough. More than that.

The average fan will not deny a sense of tedious repetition when it comes to the said two teams playing against each other. Apart from that, there is nothing so wrong as the contests are very interesting in the end.

Another factor which is worth mentioning here is player burnout. If a team like India, who anyways play a lot, gets a break, let them have it for Bradman’s sake. And that is the point where the average fan exhausts his stake in the affair.

That, my friends, is where the money comes in. Take a look at this, happened way back in 2008:

SLC media manager Shane Fernando told Agence-France Presse (AFP), “We paid off our 600 million rupee bank overdraft after getting an advance payment from television rights sold for the Indian tour.” Fernando declined to confirm whether SLC had received an advance payment from Ten Sports.

SLC’s income has been running dry in recent years. It lost $11 million when South Africa pulled out of a triangular one-day series in August 2006, after a bomb attack near the team’s hotel in Colombo.

India’s tour of Sri Lanka will see them playing three Tests and five one-day internationals over six weeks, the first Test starting on July 23.

Its all about the money, honey.

All we can do is be furious right now, then enjoy the cricket later. We cannot protest, as it is the same money which pays for our entertainment, in the end benefiting the players and officials more than it benefits us, unless there is some great cricket in display.

For that, we can only hope.

Coming up, an inter-blog ipl battle. more details soon. if interested to participate, and if you have a cricket blog, reply me @paddlesweep on twitter.

Tagged as: ftp, India, Money, ODI, Sri Lanka, test cricket