Botham and the IPL

There are some reasonable points in there but the general message is a 'stop the world I want to get off' vibe.  India runs the global game now and coming from someone like Botham talking to the MCC of all people he will just be easily dismissed as an old reactionary who is desperately bitter that England no longer runs world cricket  The IPL is here to stay for good or ill and the reason it's here to stay is that it's what a billion cricket fans in India want to watch.

Also it wouldn't take too much research to point out that the County Championship and the England cricket team (and indeed the MCC itself) were originally set up in order to facilitate gambling among rich people so given the message and the messenger it is likely to ring a bit hollow.  I've no doubt that a lot of dodgy stuff goes on in the IPL but I think they would be fully entitled to point out that the 2 main gambling scandals of the last few years in cricket have occurred in International cricket and the County Championship.

I don't personally think Botham's comments are very helpful or constructive - they just strike me as the pub ramblings of a man who is upset that the world has changed on him; there's very little constructive in this.  Any kind of solution to the IPL issue has to recognise the reality that India is where the money and the power is these days and they're no more willing to give it up than the MCC were back in the day.  It's how you encoporate that reality to provide a balance that is what matters.  I think Rahul Dravid's spoke about some of this stuff in much better terms at last years version of this.  Ie.  How do you make sure that International Cricket keeps it's integrity when it is up against the riches on offer at the IPL?