Cricket in the corporate era

The reaction of Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Bangalore Royal Challengers franchise, to his team's poor performance in the IPL has brought a new word in to cricket - accountability - writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

As cricket moves into the era of corporate management, and profitability, image and return on investment become key criteria, everybody will have to become accountable. At one level the cricketers are, because they get dropped if they don’t score runs or take wickets and that will be extended to coaches and managers...

Which is why I must reiterate my great desire; that cricket be slowly corporatised so that first all limited-overs cricket and in course of time, all cricket is run by franchises. I am not suggesting that all corporate houses are perfect or that everything the BCCI and its affiliate bodies do is wrong but corporate entities have to worry about things like image, return on investment, profitability and the consumer and often when that happens, you are forced to be right most times because otherwise you don’t survive.