“Five hundred thousand for a tin box? You’re having a laugh”
The row between BSkyB (an amalgam of BSB and Sky), the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), and the BCCI (which could stand for any number of things if you asked the panellists on Mock the Week), became more hostile today after Rupert Murdoch was told how much he’ll have to pay to get Gower and Co into India’s test venues next month.
In what was probably the most hypocritical insult to emerge since the phone tapping enquiry – or was that when Craig Revel Horwood made fun of Shane Warne’s plastic surgery? – Murdoch confirmed he won’t cough up an extra £500,000 for Sky’s commentators to hire a tin box measuring 2000sq feet.
The argument, of course, is that Sky believes the cost of hiring the commentary suite was included in the initial rights package. The BCCI, however, disagree. They believe asking for an extra half million quid – a drop in the ocean for Murdoch’s empire (apparently Botham’s bar ‘expenses’ rise to that amount nightly) – is totally reasonable.
Of course, the fact Sky haven’t had a similar dispute with any other cricket board, and the last time a similar problem arose was when England last toured India, is totally irrelevant; as is the fact that the BCCI is the richest national cricket board in the world and loves flexing its muscles (especially when those imperial bastards the English are involved).
It is hard to see how this dispute will end. Just yesterday it emerged that the Indian authorities are planning to slap a ‘talking crap’ tax on Nick Knight. Apparently, he’ll have to pay 6000 rupees (about a quid) every time he’s about to sit on the fence but remembers he’s paid to be interesting and incisive – something which usually ends with a misplaced remark that offends Kevin Pietersen.
Sky are particularly annoyed about this because Ravi Shastri has been declared exempt. Instead of being fined every time he says ‘the ball’s travelling towards the boundary like a tracer bullet’ he’s going to be given a new lucrative contract – one which rises incrementally depending on how many biased observations he can make. It’s anticipated that Shastri will become the subcontinent’s richest man by Christmas.
Meanwhile, rumours have emerged of a kidnap attempt involving Virat Kohli. News of this plot – which is based entirely on conjecture, idle speculation and the warped mind of this writer – broke when Graham Gooch was spotted in Delhi wearing shades, a false beard, whilst lugging Ravi Bopara around in a brown bag. Apparently the England management wanted to steal India’s prize jewel and replace him in the Indian dressing room with Essex’s finest. Do you think anyone would have noticed?
Unfortunately one can only guess when these tit for tat measures will end. It emerged earlier today that David Lloyd once borrowed Lalit Modi’s Parker Pens without asking. Modi has taken legal action and requested that the errant Lloyd be banned from all IPL matches for the next five hundred years (by which time English players might be able to play in the event without irritating everyone).
And by the way, as you’ve taken the time to read this blog post, you now owe The Full Toss £500. Because this blog is written from a laptop, from the confines of my own home, a building which has a substantial mortgage attached to it, you have indirectly benefitted from my house. In the true spirit of the BCCI, the least you can do is pay a small fraction of the costs incurred by me whilst writing this piece. No other blog would have the temerity to make such an outrageous request, but hey, we’re The Full Toss, and we can do what we bloody well like.
James Morgan
