Brand vs flag

The Indian Express shines a light on one of the darker sides of the IPL: The blurring lines between conflicts of interest or, as they call it, between Brand and Flag. Kris Srikkanth is chairman of the national selectors - and also brand ambassador for Chennai Super Kings (whose owner, in another example of the blurred lines, is the BCCI's secretary, N Srinivasan). Srikkanth's role, though, is the more intriguing, as the express editorial says:

The board, alas, has a terrible record in taking conflicts of interest seriously. There is no transparency about the stakes its personnel have in cricket-related activity; with the IPL, those conflicts have become more pervasive. And when the going is as good for Indian cricket as it has been, these conflicting loyalties are too easily overlooked. But moments of reckoning do come. Were India to have a disastrous time at the T20 world championship, tolerance for these scandalous cross-holdings will dissipate. But need it come to that?

On livemint.com, Mukul Kesavan says the IPL is a business venture in a globalized world which is only perfunctorily “Indian” and which acknowledges no territorial boundary or frontier that threatens its commercial prospects.