Is Chennai Super Kings behind the demise of Indian cricket?

The President of BCCI - N Srinivasan, more importantly, the owner of CSK!
Selection Committee Chairman - K Srikkanth, mentor (possibly part owner) of CSK
Indian Team Captain - Mahendra Singh Dhoni, more importantly CSK captain!!


The trio have presided over the demise of Indian cricket in England and recently in Australia. Neither the losses nor the manner of the losses seem to bring any emotion out of these Maharajahs! Reaction - "come to India, we will show you" - childish emotions.

In sharp contrast, even the smallest problem to affect the CSK brings out raw emotions and immediate repercussions! Irfan Pathan crossed Dhoni in IPL 3 by taking his wicket in a critical last over and celebrated a rare win for the Punjab team! You should have seen Dhoni's irritated and wild look at Irfan! Even the two back to back 0-4 losses against England and Australia have failed to bring any emotion out of Dhoni!!

Poor Irfan, he has paid a big price and hasn't found a place in the Indian team under Dhoni since. He has not merited a place even in the swinging and pacy wickets in Australia. Harbhajan Singh acted in an Ad and had a fallout with Dhoni over the "Have I made it Large Ad". End result - Harbhajan has lost his place in the team. Sehwag and Dhoni have had a recent fallout - result Sehwag was dropped for the MCG ODI!

Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Suresh Raina - CSK players!! The list goes on. It doesn't matter that Jadeja played miserably in the first T20. He gets a second chance!! He plays miserably in the MCG ODI- end result he gets the nod again at Perth.

The list goes on..It is pretty clear that if you are connected to the CSK, your place in the Indian team is secure. It does not matter if the pitch supports spin or pace and the kind of player you are. Being an important pawn in the CSK equation is your ticket to permanency in the Indian team! Individual player performance are secondary.

In my opinion, CSK politics have destroyed the fabric of Indian cricket! The day IPL becomes bigger than the national cricket spells the end of Indian cricket. Kudos to Sahara for taking a stand! Hope they stick to their position and bring BCCI and N Srinivasan to their knees. Now one hears of how the Auctions were rigged (Flintoff). One wonders what else in Indian cricket is rigged.

I like the IPL and have been a passionate supporter of CSK for 4 years. I even attended the inaugural CSK match in IPL1. But I value my National team more than anything else. I personally will not be supporting CSK any more!

Sai Mahesh
Sydney
P.S. I have been an avid Dhoni fan for many years enjoying the T20 World Cup win, the recent World Cup win and the many successes for CSK and also a Krish Srikkanth fan for as long as I can remember - I even visited his house in Chennai once with my cousin Dinesh and have an autographed photograph in the first page of my album!